Leadership: Humility
Success January 23rd, 2009This is the final part of a whole series on leadership. Check the leadership introduction here for all articles in the series.
To me, leadership is often thought or even taught that it requires a person to be very pushy, aggressive and must stand out amongst any possible competition. I’ve focused this series on looking at how leadership fits an individual, not how an individual has to fit leadership. This is contrary since many still believe leadership needs that commanding, loud, direct personality with the best track record, skills and talents to make things happen. Well I say, “Bah!!!” That isn’t what leadership is at all! A leader is not necessarily any better, smarter, or more skilled than others. A leader does however, have influence and impact with others. This unique capability doesn’t have to be a trade off for a compassionate personality or a label of someone with an “ego”. Leadership can be done with great humility and I believe it requires humility to truly be a great leader. You don’t have to give up any bit of your personality to be leader, you can be a leader in your own way. The problem is, it’s easy to lose your humility in achievement so this final topic on leadership is about staying humble with leadership.
“What should it profit a man if he would gain the whole world yet lose his soul.” (Mark 8:36)
Humble Leadership
I’ve written several times about humble leadership both looking at what humility is and what I think it means to truly lead. You might want to check out these previous articles for more on that.Being Humble: Leadership and Why Bothering to Be Humble? (or as Being Humble Series PDF download from the free resources page).
Even if you’ve read those before I’ll explore a little more what this humility means from the leadership perspective.
There are many leaders that think being a leader is about taking charge, having authority or a position to tell others what to do or to win influence over others because of self accomplishment. That isn’t leadership, it’s power and they are two very different things. If you want to be seen as a leader, stand out or emerge as a leader in your work or life, then likely that stems more from the desire of power than it does from leadership. Leadership is nothing about you, it’s about others.
Humility is when you can remove the status and personal gains from what you do as a leader and begin to look only at what you accomplish in the lives of those who follow you. You know that any accomplishment or changes come about through those you lead and without them, you are nothing. It’s about recognizing others before yourself and taking a far step away from any ego and closer to a compassionate and genuine concern to make others around you better and able to do more. That is humble leadership my friends.
Blending Willpower and Humility
Willpower is a massive part of being a leader and having a strong will to improve things and change is what shapes the role of many leaders. They can use that will through difficult times, to get through impossible situations and to inspire others like no one could ever hope to accomplish without the same willpower. Blending that together with humility that a leader should have from knowing he needs others to accomplish anything will enable them as a much stronger leader. Putting willpower at work towards the people being led progresses things even faster creating a much more loyal group of followers. All of a leader’s efforts and willpower should be spent and shared with others to ensure they experience it first hand and are empowered by it themselves. The blend of these abilities allows a leader to instil their own extreme level of will to all their followers. Having a strong will without humility can easily (without even intending it), build on a leader’s ego and be a very negative influence to others.
I learned this first hand several years ago in dealing with what I considered (at the time) people who couldn’t get the job done right. I had the will power to want to do it faster and push the deadlines, but doing this by either saying or demonstrating (I made the mistake of doing both) that I could in fact do it faster did nothing to help me emerge as a leader of people. It made me look strong in my skills, yes, but the people I had to work with didn’t see this as helpful or as leading them in any way. Instead, it was very intimidating and quite a negative impact on them. The damage that this has done is obvious now that I have learned from that experience. I now see this in others as well and know better than to put my willpower to work for myself, because it does nothing. Instead, when I put my willpower to empowering others, encouraging them, and working to help and convince them that our plans will work, are achievable and that we will all succeed, I can take them much further without ever a mention of my own abilities. Blending humility with willpower is one of those areas that makes a difference between good leaders and great leaders.
Willpower is very useful for facing difficult situations, such as:
- to drive through low standards
- face mediocrity with a helping hand
- eliminate failure
Staying ambitious among a team and organization as a leader while remaining modest and non-boastful is what humble leadership is all about. I dare say it’s the highest level of leadership, the most rewarding and it makes the biggest most lasting impact a leader can make.
Build Others
Leadership will always be about others and a great leader puts much attention towards that. Whether it is for skill development, filling a gap, enhancing areas for even better results or for succession planning, building others is done best by humble leaders. People want to learn from someone that doesn’t think they know it all or are better than you. Staying humble while training and giving advice is an easy way to ensure they stay interested and lets you not only build their leadership skills, but also their confidence. That’s because a humble leader will also encourage a person and credit them often. They can encourage a person to realize that they have their own talents and skills within their capabilities and that the teacher (humble leader) just helps to surface and release those skills. Compare that to a egotistic style sounding like this, “Just do what I tell you to do, I’ve been there and already know best how to do it!”. Would you want to learn from someone like that? Would it give you much self confidence? I doubt it.
Leadership should also ensure that there is some level of succession planning. The things that the leader does on their own should be eliminated, as it is a single point of failure among a group. To get the best results from any team, there should not be a single point of failure and there should be built in through skills an inherent flexibility when it comes to resources. The leader should look to build others’ with leadership skills the particular areas they do themselves so that ultimately they could be replaced. Many fear this approach as they think it can put other candidates in place for their role and put themselves as risk. It does in some ways, but from a leadership perspective, not really. First of all, the best thing that a great leader could possible accomplish is to lead a group to be self contained and able to produce the amazing results and drive for accomplishment on their own. A leader who can do this is extremely valuable, as they are a producer of leaders themselves. You can lead anywhere if you have the ability to produce more leaders in doing so. Listing that kind of value on your resume and portfolio has impact!
Servant Leadership
Finally I come to servant leadership. It’s foundation is humility and means that you put others first, above yourself consistently. You’ll end up doing the things you don’t want to do and you’ll take any consequences away from others to relieve them. These could be things like taking blame, sacrifice of work hours or giving up credit even when it is due. And this isn’t done when convenient, it’s consistent!
There are many ways that servant leaders lead, and it is usually obvious in their humility. Here are just a few:
- Will always take someone else’s suggestion or idea over their own
- They don’t ever need to get their own way
- They never argue to be right about something, they immediately close it and say, “you may be right”
- They hold their own opinion and let other’s share first
- Want and query the opinion of others often
- Appreciate what they have and are given
- Never make excuses, they simply accept responsibility (even if it isn’t theirs to accept)
- Will carry out any task, no matter how tedious
- Are happy to help others with anything
Servant leadership is based on love and help to others. A servant leader demonstrates this in every action they do, which is how they lead, by doing. I personally believe this is not only a noble way to lead, but a godly one. It was taught by the only perfect servant leader, Jesus Christ and is a powerful humbling way to lead. Learning this takes life experience (often the hard way by learning what NOT to do) and by studying and reflecting on other humble leaders. What makes them humble, how do you measure or judge someone’s humility. How far would you take things to be humble and for who?
Learning to be more humble requires great attention and a change in your character traits to relate more closely to human relationships and lasting endeavors in life that includes others. Look to read more on servant leadership from leaders who have made great sacrifices and lead by love. They are not the typical top CEOs or the celebrity leaders that get the most publicity, they are the quiet, graceful and often missed leaders that leave the greatest impact of the hearts of many once they are gone.
Please add your comments, please add your thoughts and I’d love to hear what you have to say about this article as the last in this series and the series as a whole. Hold nothing back. What did you love, what did you hate? What was missing? I appreciate any comments you have to offer! And if you read this far and liked the article or series, please add a stumble review to help share it for me. Thanks!
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January 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 AM
I truly enjoyed your Leadership series. I found it fitting that you ended it with Humility. Being Humble is truly a very important quality in Leadership. Not everyone understands the importance of being humble. It allows you to be open to grow and learn.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:58 AM
“…the only perfect servant leader, Jesus Christ….” Well said Mike, Jesus blended humility and will power perfectly to exemplify that any loving human being can be a perfect servant leader. He exemplified Love as the perfect blend of humility and will power.
His whole life exemplified Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem excerpt below:
Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?
Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.
Jesus ultimately answered the question of the mightiness of love by not needing to preempt the grievance of crucifixion. Thus, being absolute personified love, He showed the Way to move from the dark cusp of death simply by enjoying life’s widening pool of love light.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Thank you so much Maria and Dhanamjaya for your additional thoughts and comments on this subject.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:48 PM
Well it is easy to talk about humble leadership, but you can describe it in a way that is believeable. Thank you for sharing your thoughts….Happy Blogging Rainer
January 24th, 2009 at 11:14 AM
Hi Mike,
This in my view is the best in the whole series, both as a concept and for its exposition. I could easily pick a few gems from this article. Sample: ‘A leader is not necessarily any better, smarter, or more skilled than others. A leader does however, have influence and impact with others’ or ‘..when I put my willpower completely in empowering others, .. I can take them much further without ever a mention of my own abilities’.
A friendly observation though, Mike. This article for some reason, I find has unusually long sentences for the first time I noticed. Sample: ‘Using willpower to drive through low standards, face mediocrity with a helping hand, eliminate failure, be ambitious for their team and organization while being modest, non-boastful, catalyzing and crediting others’ accomplishments and taking any heat for poor results builds is what humble leadership is all about’. Sorry about this, but thought it helps; more so, when you were keen to know if we found anything to point out. I carry the guilt of being complex in my writing and have been counseled to keep it simple. I have a weakness to be unable to change myself, but since you are open, I thought it might help you.
I would love to Stumble it for you soon. You have reason to celebrate conclusion of a wonderful series.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:36 PM
Mike,
These are incredible series on leadership!
I encourage you to wrap it as an ebook – let viral marketing angel spread his wings and get it to the masses ;)!
January 25th, 2009 at 4:59 AM
You consistently provide excellent, wise work, Mike. Thank you!
Blessings to you and all you hold dear,
CG
There are three jewels that I cherish. The first is compassion with wisdom, which brings courage to help others. The second is moderation, which brings abundance to share with others. And, the third is humility, which brings peace and harmony. Those having courage with no compassion; abundance with no moderation; and power with no humility can not endure. These three jewels bring about a life of simplicity with joy and peace. —Tao Te Ching, verser 67
January 25th, 2009 at 9:28 PM
I totally agree nothing exists in its immanent state ,substances and qualities interact and balance themselves what gives harmony to the world itself. Thanks for wisdom of Tao.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:39 AM
I would like to thank you for posting the entire leadership series. I am sure people have and will continue to learn what it takes to become a successful leader. Keep up the good work and more power to you.
January 27th, 2009 at 1:59 AM
Hi Mike, a great closing article of leadership series. Instead, in the book of Good to Great, it was said 5th level (the highest level) of leadership belongs to they who have modesty.
Thanks for sharing.
January 27th, 2009 at 1:01 PM
This was a great series. This last installment especially demonstrates the strong passion you feel for the subject matter. Passion in itself is a very common trait among leaders. However, passion can also be overwhelming and can sometimes lead us to get too carried away. Herein lies our one small criticism of the series.
“I personally believe this is not only a noble way to lead, but a godly one. It was taught by [b]the only perfect servant leader[/b], Jesus Christ and is a powerful humbling way to lead.” (emphasis ours)
The above is a very subjective statement that we feel is probably influenced more by one’s personal faith or religious background rather than objective discourse; to us, it just did not seem to sound right. We can arguably say that the Dalai Lama and the Prophet Mohammed are just as worthy servant leaders to be held in such esteem, for example. We also have more contemorary servant leaders that we can use as examples: Nelson Mandela is perhaps a more universally accepted living example.
January 27th, 2009 at 7:14 PM
Hi Mike,
Congratulations on really quite an amazing series on leadership! You’ve really gone above and beyond with your level of knowledge, insight and attention to detail.
I’ve bookmarked your series and have referred back to it a few times – I’m sure I’ll continue to do so when I need some tips and need to be inspired!
Thanks again Mike, for a great read.
-Ross
January 27th, 2009 at 8:31 PM
This is a wonderful article. Too many people equate leadership with having power over others, not empowering them. I’ve been reading a great book, A Dog’s Advice to Leaders by Jo Ellen Roe, where she talks about people skills being one of the most important things a leader can have.
January 28th, 2009 at 1:29 PM
Humility — Recognizing that ideas can come from other people, a willingness to change your mind, being able to admit mistakes when you make them, and being willing to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than punishing them, anyway nice article really usefull.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:22 PM
this is quite a harmful thing to have power over the others, I think the power is needed to master oneself,it is much more difficult.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:22 PM
WOW everyone. I’m sorry I’ve been disconnected from all of your great comments. I spent the last 2 weeks on the beach in Jamaica for a much needed absolute ban on media/computers/work/etc. It was a joy and for 2 weeks had only a very small hint of missing things.
@rainer – thanks so much for your comment and for stopping by. I hope you check out the rest of the series as well.
@Pushhyarag – thanks for pointing out those bits you liked the best. And I definitely appreciate the feedback on those long bits. With getting this out just before holidays and writing such a long series, I will admit, I didn’t proof read the last couple articles much. I am usually more concise so I’ll do a bit of editing before putting out the ebook version. Thanks for highlighting that to me!
@Alik – thanks so much!! I will definitely ebook it soon now that I’m back in the country…
@CG Walters – thanks for your comments and wise words added. Those 3 certainly fit together well, as the quote indicates.
@Start Blogging – thanks for your comment and thoughts on this series as well! I do appreciate it!
February 7th, 2009 at 6:38 PM
@Arswino – You are absolutely right. I totally forgot about that 5th level reference. Yes, of course this isn’t all my own ideas for this series, I’ve learned it only by the willingness of many other great bloggers, leaders, authors and some tough experiences along my journey. I just finished reading “Purpose” on vacation and has many references back to Collin’s awesome book, Good to Great. Well worth reading for any leader, I’ll write up a review for it soon…
@A Friend – thanks for your thoughts on the series and your opinion as well. I certainly won’t argue with you and everyone will have a different opinion as to who they would model a servant leader after. I was careful to preface it (for the exact reason of your comment) with “I personally belief” so I will leave it at, my personal thought. You don’t need to agree, I am fine with that. Your examples have great noble and godly servant hood behind them as well. Thanks for adding your thoughts, I always appreciate additional (whether conflicting or not) points and references from my readers!
@Ross – thanks so much for the feedback and I’m thrilled the series has impressed you to keep it as a reference. Please do download the ebook version once I get it in my resources page in the next week or so.
@Ruth – you threw me off with the title of that book but it sounds like it has a theme of leading people, which obviously I would agree with. Thanks for the added reference.
@Print Service – thanks for your comment on summary of humility. I hope you check out some of the rest of the series on leadership as well!
@Dicki – so true. so true! Many people do not realize what harm they cause when exercising leadership by power. Thanks for keep on coming back to comment!
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 PM
Mike this has been a truly wonderful series of articles on leadership both thoughtful and thought provoking
thank you for putting it together.
July 25th, 2009 at 9:07 AM
I love it! I have long counseled new leaders to thing about their jobs as enabling others. This relates directly to the heart of humility in leadership. New leaders get hung up on this more that I ever would have thought possible. The first year on the job is largely spent trying to figure out how to exercise POWER. Unfortunately few leaders start with the tools to enable others. Luckily this is learn-able and teachable! Thanks for the article. Resources like these make it easier for us all to coach!
December 29th, 2010 at 2:58 AM
There are situations where the leader becomes the follower. When that happens he must be humble, respectful, and responsive. It may be difficult to drop the ego. A good leader is a good follower.
February 7th, 2011 at 5:46 PM
absoulutly great information here. love the bit on compassion to become a leader. i know the buddhasitva of among buddha’s and monks, has one of the most compassionate ways to show other people ahead of there own corpse of a body. “The way to the bodhisatva” <great book.
May 25th, 2011 at 11:12 PM
This is in fact the – success Formula