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How to Be a “Humbitious” Leader

Empirical evidence connects humility and ambition with high performance.

Humility is making a comeback as one of the most sought-after professional virtues organizations look for in candi- dates. The Wall Street Journal reported that humility is becoming the “flavor du jour” among executives in large companies, as boards are increasingly looking for humble leaders.

When Krispy Kreme Doughnuts was looking for a CEO a few years ago, the main traits it identified as important for the leadership role were that of humility and servant leadership. Similarly, humility is what Google has been looking for in its new hires. “Without humility, you are unable to learn,” Lazlo Bock, senior vice presi- dent, people operations, Google, told Harvard Business Review. A recent arti- cle in the Journal of Business Ethics agreed that, “the humble leader is pre- cisely the person who is best qualified to transform his firm into a profitable, successful and respected organization.”

What does humble leadership actually mean? The book Executive Ethics: Ethical Dilemmas and Challenges for the C-Suite identifies the five foundations of humility related to leaders as authen- ticity, teachability, transparency, humaneness and interdependency.

Humble, authentic leaders confess to their followers that they make mistakes

and ask for their patience in correcting them. They demonstrate their teach- ability by acknowledging openly when they are wrong and asking for forgiveness when mishaps happen. They are transparent and admit when they don’t know something, and they constantly ask their team members for their ideas. They show their humaneness by accepting that they can’t do everything and that they need all their followers’ talents to achieve their goals. And finally, they exhibit interdependency by stressing that they are there for a larger purpose and not for themselves. Humility is not, as some people believe, weak- ness, low self-esteem, lack of assertive- ness or absence of ambition. On the contrary, humble leaders are ambitious, strong, self-confident and fiercely deter- mined. They are also highly effective.

The Case for Humility The introduction of humility into lead- ership studies can be credited to Jim Collins and his management book Good to Great (Harper Collins, 2001). Collins and his team identified compa- nies that made the transition from good to great financial performance over time and concluded that they were all headed by “level 5 leaders” who are humble and fiercely ambitious. Collins and his team were surprised to discover the type of leadership required for

turning a good company into a great one. He notes: “Compared to high- profile leaders with big personalities, who make headlines and become celeb- rities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars.”

These findings provided empirical evi- dence to what many had suspected for a long time: humility and ambition, or “humbition,” are related to high per- formance. However, what wasn’t clear from Collins’ analyses is how humility and positive outcomes are actually connected, and recent research is start- ing to clarify that connection.

One way leader humility can affect performance is through employee engagement and satisfaction. A study of a large health services organization asked employees to rate the humility of their immediate supervisors. The employees were also asked to assess their own job engagement and satis- faction. The results were published in 2013 in the journal Organization Science. Participants who viewed their leaders as more humble were more likely to report being happy at work and less likely to voluntarily leave the organization.

“In contrast to ‘rousing’ employees through charismatic, energetic and idealistic leadership approaches [...], our study suggests a ‘quieter’ leader- ship approach, with listening, being transparent about limitations, and

Amer Kaissi, PhD

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appreciating follower strengths and con- tributions as effective ways to engage employees,” wrote the authors of the study. In the current labor market, where organizations are struggling to attract and retain talent, humility can be a valuable competitive advantage. Another way leader humility works is by creating a culture of shared unpre- tentiousness that enables the team to grow and reach its full potential. For example, research published in 2016 in the Academy of Management Journal found teams that perceived their lead- ers as willing to learn, able to admit to not knowing something and likely to compliment others on their strengths had higher collective humility, team growth and performance. These find- ings provide empirical evidence to

support the old adage, “leaders should lead by example.” Similarly, humble lead- ers in private companies were found to empower their top and middle managers to collaborate, share information, make joint decisions and develop a shared vision in an Administrative Science Quarterly study, published in 2014.

The results from a study of healthcare organizations published in my book Intangibles: The Unexpected Traits of High-Performing Healthcare Leaders suggest that leaders who are approach- able not only create an environment where employees feel comfortable, but also foster improved outcomes in the organization. My team received sur- vey responses from 577 employees, supervisors, directors and executives working in nine different hospital and

health systems. When asked about the leadership traits that have had a negative influence on their career, 52 percent of the respondents chose arrogance as the top factor, making it the most common negative leader- ship trait chosen. Many respondents indicated that nothing has been more damaging to their career than having an arrogant boss. Similarly, when asked to describe the one leader that has been the least successful in terms of improving outcomes in the organi- zation and getting things done, 44 percent of respondents described this leader as “self-focused” and 42 percent described the leader as “arrogant.”

According to these results, not only do self-focused and arrogant leaders

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frustrate their followers and disen- gage them, they also may drive their organizations into poor performance. Here are some day-to- day techniques and behaviors healthcare leaders can adopt to increase their humility:

How to speak: Use “we” instead of “I”; talk about team accomplish- ments; greet team members and gen- uinely listen, understand and reply to them; and use respectful language.

How to be approachable: Have a true open door policy but protect your time when necessary; talk to employees at all levels; turn off elec- tronic devices while listening; avoid cell phone use in the hallways so you are able to greet others as you pass by; and—much like clinicians—do rounds in your units regularly and purposefully.

How to give credit to others: Give credit frequently but only when it is due; acknowledge employees doing something good; say, “You went above and beyond,” to employees who exceed expectations; and provide prompt, accurate and sincere feed- back to those looking to improve.

How to handle mistakes and failures: Be calm and controlled; identify root causes, not scapegoats; have tough conversations with low- performers; admit mistakes, accept responsibility and move on.

How to respond to success: Brag about and celebrate team and organi- zational accomplishments; share credit; don’t show off with status symbols; build on successes for future improvements.

Effective leaders are admired for their humility and are respected for their ambition. They are humbitious. There is an abundance of empirical evidence that strongly suggests that these types of leaders achieve signifi- cantly more success in the long run for themselves, their teams and their organizations. s

Amer Kaissi, PhD, is an executive coach, speaker and professor, the Department of Health Care Administration, Trinity University, San Antonio. He is also the author of the Health Administration Press book, Intangibles: The Unexpected Traits of High-Performing Healthcare Leaders ([email protected]).

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