In my work as a consultant for leadership teams, potential clients sometimes ask what key factors lead to success in achieving a high-performance culture. I respond that the commitment of the leader is hugely important – when the leader owns the success of the organization’s culture, there’s a very good chance it will thrive. Another important contributor is the humility of the leader. Show me a humble leader who is clear about their commitment, and I’ll show you a highly functioning organization.
In The Ideal Team Player, Patrick Lencioni talks about the three virtues of teamwork and humility gets top billing along with hunger and smarts (the emotional kind). He defines two types of people who lack humility: “overtly arrogant people who make everything about them,” and “people who lack self-confidence but are generous and positive with others.”
The first type is not surprising and what most people identify with a lack of humility. Leaders who are overtly arrogant don’t listen well, have trouble engaging in constructive conflict (because, after all, they already know the answer), are happy to hold others accountable but have trouble being accountable themselves.
Another way the arrogant type can impact a team is more subtle. A while back, I worked with a leader at a publishing company who led a creative team. When we talked about communication and the role it plays in enduring cultures, he balked. No way was he going to be repeating himself to his direct reports. He was adamant about that. However, he did a pretty good job implementing many of the other concepts around organizational health and a year or so later, he called me up.
“I get it,” he said. “My unwillingness to overcommunicate was all about me. I didn’t want my team to think I was pedantic or worse, nagging them, so I didn’t spend the time to overcommunicate. And they suffered. What I thought was incredibly clear, wasn’t.”
His lack of humility – in that he was managing in a way that upheld his overblown self-image – impacted the team’s ability to achieve and he realized it. Needless to say, his team experienced a lot more success once he started communicating with vigor.
I mentioned a second type of leader who lacks humility – and the way they negatively affect teams may surprise you. Many people don’t readily identify these self-effacing folks as not humble. But, as C.S. Lewis put it:
“Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.” These folks are not right-sized – they diminish their worth because of their insecurities – and that causes its own set of issues.
Here’s a classic example I saw with a leadership team. During a meeting at a health care company I work with, the CEO, who struggles with being overly self-effacing, explained a developing situation with a key employee. This employee has been with the company since its founding, holds a significant role, and has a big presence at the company. And the employee wasn’t happy. The CEO told the team that she’d changed the reporting structure to have the disgruntled employee report directly to her. In addition, the employee’s role would change to focus on future development, a job that someone else on the team already holds.
The CEO felt really strongly about this situation, but you’d never know it from how she talked about it. She spoke in a muted voice; her language was fairly blasé. Her insecurities showed up as a lack of conviction, which made it hard for the rest of the team to ask challenging (and important) questions. Some fairly weighty strategic issues went unaddressed because it didn’t seem to the team like the CEO could withstand them.
This situation is not as uncommon as you might think.
When leaders don’t show the courage of their convictions it is more difficult for their colleagues to do their jobs and engage in rigorous debate. Ultimately, the business suffers.
Humility, unfortunately, is something that’s difficult to teach, but I have seen leaders with true discipline have success in showing up more humbly by mimicking certain behaviors long enough that they become second nature.
This means that doing humble things like:
- honoring failure for what it is – a lesson along the way
- sharing credit with the team
- offering and accepting apologies
- accepting accountability with grace
- showing conviction with openness
- really listening to input – and seeking input – from all team members
- complimenting teammates
These can be a good start for those with work to do in this area. And if you have the ability to choose your leader, these are great markers of a truly humble leader who can help make amazing things happen within organizations.