LeaderTip: Humility’s Power

A deliberate practice of staying humble is a source of power for any leader. As achievements, expertise, and experience mount, it’s not uncommon for self-assurance to evolve into swagger. Yet a pattern of arrogance or pride, even in tiny doses, tends to turn people off—distancing you from others, and de-motivating even your high performers. Humility means putting your ego in check, and letting go of the need to appear “on top of everything” or “buttoned up” when that’s not the day you're having. People need to know you’re human too, which goes a long way to building the loyalty and mutual respect needed for a high-performing leader and team.


Self-coaching:

• Consider what triggers your arrogance, ego, or sense of pride to show itself to colleagues or those working for you.

• Once triggered, and it surfaces, what does it look like? How do people around you react to it?

• What would it take for you to practice humility in such situations, and what would be the benefit and downside of doing so?

David Peck
Executive Coach and President
Leadership Unleashed
Twitter: recoveringleadr

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Based on client experiences / lessons learned, our weekly LeaderTips have been offering self-coaching themes and topics of interest to leaders since 2004. They are often published in BusinessWeek Online, sent weekly to our clients, and hundreds of other corporate leaders worldwide. I invite you to forward them to others, who are also welcome to subscribe using the link below. Note that over 100 of these tips appear in my book, Beyond Effective: Practices in Self-aware Leadership. Click here to subscribe to LeaderTips via email.

Comments

[Jim Dowling]

Thanks David for addressing a topic that I regularly work on improving. My ego can sabotage me in so many ways but distancing myself and being inauthentic are definitely two of the more damaging consequences. What is currently part of my humility practice is to stay attentive to what others are doing and make a point of thanking them often from a genuine place. It takes my energy away from me and puts it gracefully on them. I also ask myself the question who am I being of service to right now and how can I best serve them. Thanks!

[Nevin Danielson]

This is a great reminder. Thanks for the post David.

I think another power of humility is an improved ability to see and react to new, emerging trends. Our ego sometimes leads us to make unhelpful assumptions about something foreign. If we humbly acknowledge that we aren't the expert or master of this new thing, we're better able to explore alternatives.