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INSIGHT: Effective bosses lead with humility, not ego |
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By Erik Hoekstra For the Sioux Falls Business Journal
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Tuesday, 01 May 2007 |
There is a problem with being a person in leadership with lots of talents and abilities, and many of you reading this are.
It starts to go to your head.
When you’ve been asked to lead time and time again, you start to get the feeling that you’re pretty special.
You are special. When you’ve been asked to lead, it does say something about you. You have a gift. Whether the gift is technical smarts, relationship-building skills, hard-driving dedication or great problem-solving abilities, those gifts make you special.
However, strong abilities and tons of talent often tempt leaders to think in ways that are dangerous to true leadership. Humility is hard after you’ve been asked to lead for many years.
Don’t let me confuse you. You certainly need confidence in your own abilities to be a leader, but that’s where it gets tough. That confidence that you need – your ego-drive – can get out of hand and take over.
Here are danger signs that you might not be leading from a solid foundation of humility:
• You think that what you say or do is better than what others say or do.
• You always want to get your way.
• You argue when you aren’t right. Or, even when you are right, you use bad manners or stubbornness in conversations.
• You make excuses for things you’ve not done or done poorly.
• You feel hurt when others succeed or have something they do well.
The tough part about humility is that if you think you have it, you probably don’t. At its core, humility means thinking and caring about others more than you think or care about yourself.
Many people react to that definition of humility by putting themselves down, but that isn’t productive. Low self-esteem is not humility.
To develop as a leader with true humility, you still can think and care about yourself the same amount that you always have. You just need to think and care about others more.
Jim Collins, in his classic book “Good to Great,” found that personal humility – defined in what he termed level 5 leadership – was a key to successful leadership in the long haul. Here are signs that you might be looking at true humility in action:
• You use more questions than statements when talking to others.
• You listen first, truly listen, before assuming that you know what’s best.
• You look for specific ways to call out others’ contributions, skills and gifts.
• You are comfortable saying statements such as “I don’t know, what do you think?” “I was wrong, let’s try another idea” or “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”
Developing leadership with humility is tricky. You can’t do it directly. You can’t wake up one morning and say, “Today, I’m going to become more humble.” You don’t develop the skill to run a marathon or bench press 200 pounds by doing those things directly. Instead, you train and develop other skills along the way that allow you to get to that point.
Zig Ziglar said: “You can have anything in the world you want, if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.”
That’s a hard truth to recognize, and an even harder truth to live. But give it a try, it will be worth it.
Hoekstra is chief executive officer of Harbor Consulting Group |