2 Simple Ways to Achieve Leadership Greatness

It’s the American way—the winning spirit in which many people live and aspire to every day. Many of our efforts in life are focused on achieving greatness in life and work. We want to win at all costs and ideally be the best.

But when this mindset is out of balance, ironically it keeps us from being truly great. It takes confidence but also humility. It’s all about being authentic—aware that we have unique talents but aren’t perfect. And at the same time, we must become more aware that others are very important, too.

This is more than soft skills training—may I explain further?

Confident and Humble Formula

In more than three decades of working in personal and leadership development, it’s become very clear to me that the best leaders are very confident and believe in themselves—and yet they are very humble. They can mentally step back and celebrate someone else; they can be vulnerable and take ownership of their mistakes and recognize and celebrate when others have better talents or more knowledge in an area. This is a stunning revelation to many “winners”.

The Merrian Webster Dictionary says that the origin of the words humility and humble is:

“humilis, the Latin word for meaning ‘low.’”

Yes, it can mean that someone does not have confidence in themselves, but their first definition is more focused on our natural tendency to think too highly of ourselves—not being proud, haughty or arrogant. Their second definition is about self-awareness so that you can offer a spirit of deference to others.

My brief coaching clip this month unpacks this idea even more. Please watch, and then continue reading the blog below –

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Feeling Accepted and Worthy

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“Self-confidence is essential for true humility, and true self-confidence comes from being healthy and not having to prove that you’re somebody.” [Tweet This]

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When you feel accepted and worthy, it’s much easier to believe in others and help them grow more confident. But most of us have not had a perfect upbringing, we have some baggage that undermines our self-confidence and brings out our areas of low self-esteem or false pride that some use to cover up their insecurity.? Regardless of our background, we all need to continually grow. Let’s look at some ways to grow in confidence and humility so that we can help others do the same.

2 Greatness Principles

It’s been fifty years since the Vietnam POWs came home, and surprisingly, we have been very healthy both physically and psychologically. After reflecting and discussing it with my former cellmates, we tend to agree that it really came because we had to live in total vulnerability.

When you are locked up in a room full of confident, aggressive fighter pilots and crew members, you cannot pretend. Thus, as we learned to accept others, we also learned to accept ourselves. We became more confident and more humble.

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1. Believe in Yourself.

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As you learn to accept and believe in your unique self, your doubts and fears subside. You metamorphize into a more authentic, genuine leader. Because you don’t have to be perfect, you’re more humble and capable of being vulnerable which, believe it or not, increases others’ trust in you.

Once I was coaching someone I’ll call Jason, a senior leader in a Fortune 200 company who had a problem of wanting to speak up (and sometimes dominate) in almost every discussion in the staff meetings with their leader, the division vice-president. I’m sure that many of us have encountered this scenario at work or struggled with it ourselves.

One day I asked him to pause and think back over his life and try to recall who he was trying to impress. What was causing him to speak up so often?

After a couple of minutes of silence, his face turned sad. He said, “It was my father. He often indicated that I had fallen short of his expectations, making me feel that he did not believe in me.”

This was a painful moment for Jason. As we talked, I reminded him of his great leadership skills as well as my confidence in his future—and that his boss and his peers really believed in him. He just needed to believe in himself and coach himself to restrain his comments.

A few weeks later one of his peers approached me and said “Wow, what did you do to Jason? He’s a completely different person in our meetings. He only speaks up when it’s appropriate.”

Jason was soon promoted and is now a highly regarded, nationally known leader in his profession.

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2. Help others develop confidence to believe in themselves.

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Give them your presence. Set aside your ideas and opinions and lower yourself to where they feel like you are looking up to them. Then engage with them where they are and listen. Show interest in their ideas and empathy for their feelings and you will make them feel more important and from that experience they will grow in both confidence and humility.

It’s also important to be intentional. Coach yourself to encourage your teammates and let them know you believe in them. The more worthy and important they feel, the more confident and humble they will be and the better they will perform.

The Paradox of Greatness

“The way of true self is always the way of humility. Pride and arrogance move us toward our false self, but humility and love allow us to live the truth of our being.” - David G. Benner, Ph.D.? The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery

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Though the words humility and humbleness may sound a bit weak, those who have the confidence to lower themselves are the ones who lift others up and help them believe in themselves and ultimately become stronger people and better performers.

LE [Tweet this Article]

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