How can you promote humility to improve team coordination?

During my professional career, I've worked with several leaders/Bosses, and one thing that was common among most was arrogance. I won't say that when I got the chance to lead a team I've been a great leader but I tried to be the leader I always wanted to have. Let me pen down my experience how I perceived humility... I practiced to be the leader who encouraged my team to step into the spotlight and take credit for their achievements. Recognized their expertise and tried to provide them opportunities to participate in the conversations willingly and actively. And as you step into the role of a humble leader it helps you build your confidence, resilience, and ability to adjust in the midst of turmoil.

Leaders must actively participate within their team, demonstrating courage, providing support, attentive listening, celebrating successes, displaying humility, and embracing an open mindset. They should cultivate team momentum, encourage the free expression of ideas, and foster a supportive culture. Every small action taken in this regard can significantly enhance team effectiveness and boost overall organizational performance.

Humility is essential for the success of any team because it fosters a culture of collaboration, learning, and adaptability. 1. Learning from Mistakes: Humble team members are not afraid to admit their errors and learn from them. 2. Open Communication: Humility encourages open and honest communication. Team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas, concerns, and feedback, leading to better problem-solving and innovation. 3. Empowering Others: This fosters a sense of ownership and motivation within the team. 4. Respecting Diverse Perspectives: Humility leads to a willingness to acknowledge that others may have better ideas or expertise in certain areas. L

TEAM stands for Together Everyone Achieves More. Humility is the essence of team management. Humility allows you to understand, humility allows you to be empathetic, humility makes you to encourage and acknowledge, and finally humility makes you a great leader. A leader who will lead the team by example and create future leaders from among the team.

Leaders must provide open atmosphere for individual to speak and listen to overcome issues and provide platform to overcome , boost confidence and handle situations . Every individual has different thinking to particular situation and cannot exactly match with what leaders think and should accept thought process and respect individual and treat with humility. Leaders should accept and exhibit characters for organisations to grow and respond in positive way. In competitive world experience is of utmost importance if you value it and utilise it otherwise will not lead to solutions to existing problems and will continue with problems which will have dissatisfaction and injustice to role.

A powerful way to demonstrate humility is walking a team through your decision-making process on something that mattered. Whether a personal or professional example, airing the factors you considered, the doubts you had, the risks you weighed, and the hopes you had for the decision, is a powerful way to demonstrate not only sound judgment but also the fact that everyone has doubts!

Practice transparency about your challenges and shortcomings, demonstrating that vulnerability is not a weakness but a source of strength. Beyond routine praise, take deliberate moments to genuinely recognize and celebrate your team's contributions.

If you want to work to become a more humble leader, I have a few ideas to get you started: 1. Get over yourself! Recognize that it is not about you. It has never been about you. It will never be about you. The earth will continue to spin if you disappear tomorrow. No individual is irreplaceable on a team, whether or not they think they are. 2. Seek feedback…real feedback. Ask people you trust to give you feedback on how they perceive or are impacted by your humility (or lack thereof). If it doesn't sting, keep digging. I would also encourage you to consider engaging a professional coach who can partner with you and help you on this journey. We have a great team of those at your service as well.

The key to practicing humility is letting go of your fear of looking weak. Our egos can get in the way of being honest with ourselves and with those we have the privilege to lead. Embrace failure, be open and honest about where things went wrong and look to build upon them.

I have found that the leaders that I have encountered that have them most humility are the ones that have been at one time prideful and boastful and have fallen. I have been that guy. And I learned many hard lessons from that. Be careful of being put on a pedestal because it can be a long hard fall from it.

If you find someone struggling with these issues, it’s important to make that person comfortable and talk on these matters and draw a plan for execution that can help him/her improve on the same.

In order to promote humility within your team. There has be a strong sense of trust amongst the group. When you can trust peoples intentions we tend to handle their feedback better. Because we trust the persons intentions. It's the manager's responsibility to model and encourage a culture that supports humility. At the end of the day are you allowed to bring your full self to work? Can you be completely vulnerable without judgement? Can you share your faults without it being used against you?

Model the behaviors you wish to see in your team by openly acknowledging your own mistakes, seeking input, and recognizing the expertise of others. Your actions serve as a powerful guide, illustrating that humility is not just a concept but an integral part of effective leadership.

I think it still throws people off when, as an influential person with gravitas, you are able to come down to their level. In my experience, I gravitate towards law students and entry-level legal professionals. Some of ask me in disbelief why I take such an interest in them! This is great starting point for me because I've been able to model the same humility in a team setting. Of course, there are those team members who do not only learn through modelling so you have cultivate an awareness of the need for and impact of humility through words and memos. Specifically, you need to show how the lack of humility among team members impact other team members and you as the leader.

To foster humility in employees, one powerful method is to encourage active listening, as shown in Lehmann and al. (2023) study. Their studies utilized various methodologies, from recalling past listening experiences to placing participants in different listening conditions. Overall, all the results confirmed that active listening consistently triggered humility. This increase was most pronounced in the person doing the listening, rather than the one speaking. Essentially, when an individual genuinely listens, they are more open to understanding and learning from others, which nurtures humility. Hence, promoting active listening in the workplace can be an effective strategy to cultivate humility.

The team mirrors the leader. How the leader demonstrates humility will be a good starting point. The other area way is to appreciate team when they demonstrate humility.

Humble leaders admit when they are wrong. No one has all the answers and sometimes we make the wrong choice. A humble leader quickly admits a mistake and tries to correct it. Bonus points are earned when they involve the team into solving the problem and actually listen to or incorporate their suggestions into the solution.

Humility means having the courage and self-awareness to admit that you do not have all the answers, are not always right, and can benefit from the insights of others who have less knowledge, authority, or power than you. It is actively mining the ideas and unique contributions of those you serve. Leading with humility helps build a culture of learning and an atmosphere that encourages everyone to become the best they can be.

Fail. Hard. Have a vision. Some shiny city on a hill to point at after you fail. If there’s no cohesion, take a bigger risk that could actually fail.

The two biggest things I find to be helpful are leading by example and reframing what "failure" means. If a leader is willing to own up to their mistakes, it shows that the team is a safe place to be human and allows for growth. For my folks, I redefine failure as "falling forward." Sure, you fell down, but now you're however many feet ahead of where you were. And since we don't like to fail, we're less likely to make that mistake again. By creating an environment where mistakes are met with education instead of punishment, it opens the door to much more growth on your team.