Hardwiring Humility into Organizational Cultures

Humility has received a lot of attention lately, especially with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, declaring in a senate testimony about Covid-19: “I am very careful, and hopefully humble in knowing that I don’t know everything about this disease"

The last few years have witnessed an explosion in the research examining the role of humility in business and in leadership. There is unequivocal evidence that humble leaders perform better than non-humble ones for individuals, teams and organizations. Humble leaders make employees feel more trustful, psychologically empowered and less emotionally exhausted, and have a strong voice. They help improve their teams’ learning, creativity, innovation, and performance. Moreover, humble leaders create positive organizational climates of involvement and feedback, which leads to better overall productivity and performance.

Given the overwhelmingly positive impact of humble leadership, it is surprising that many organizations leave themselves at the mercy of the personality of their leaders- if they are fortunate with appointing a humble CEO, they reap the benefits of that appointment, and if not, they suffer the consequences for years to come. I suggest that organizations should not relegate humility to chance, and rather need to examine ways with which they can spread humility and make it part of the way they do things.

How can organizations make humility hardwired in their cultures? Based on my coaching, my research and the research of others, here are a few tips:

Hire & promote humble employees into leadership positions & retain them

There is ample evidence that shows that humble employees tend to be passed over for hiring and promotion into leadership positions, and that narcissists tend to get more opportunities for advancement. In any given interview, a narcissist is typically more self-promoting, overconfident, entertaining and charming and is therefore more likely to convince the interviewers that he/she is the right person for the job. However, confidence is very different from competence: competence is how good you are and confidence is how good you think you are. As organizational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic notes in his recent book, there is no empirical relationship between confidence and competence. It is paramount then that organizations put in place hiring and interviewing practices that allow humble and competent individuals to standout. One such practice is to ask any job applicant to a leadership position about a professional achievement that he/she is proud of, and to note the number of times that he/she says “I” and “me” vs. “we” and “us.” Humble individuals are not hesitant to talk about their achievements, but they always recognize the contributions of their teams in helping them reach those achievements. They also acknowledge the role that their mentors and coaches have played in their success. When looking to promote internal leaders into executive positions, it is important to spend some time observing them in 1:1 or large group meetings and noting whether they tend to make statements all the time or whether they take the time to ask questions. The ratio of statements to questions is an important metric that determines where an individual falls on the humility-narcissism spectrum. Moreover, recent assessments such as Hogan can allow hiring managers to screen for humility based on questions such as “I appreciate other people’s advice at work” and “I am entitled to more respect than the average person”.

Model humble behaviors

Despite his due diligence in hiring new team members, Aaron Bujnowski, Partner at the Chartis Group and previous Senior Vice President at Texas Health Resources, once told me that sometimes a few non-humble individuals slip through the cracks. In order to help them become more humble, he believes in applying multiple pressure points. One of those pressure points is modeling the behavior that he wants others to repeat. “If you behave like a humble leader, others will tend to emulate you,” he says. By modeling humble behaviors, he creates an environment where people auto-correct their behavior or correct each other. For example, a secretary can tell a Senior Vice President that he is acting like a jerk and suffer no retaliation.

Coach employees and leaders to be more humble

 Another tactic to cultivate humility in teams and in organizations is constant coaching and immediate feedback. When the leader hears someone making a negative comment about another team member, she confronts him kindly and says: “When you made that statement in the meeting, it had a negative effect on the team. Don’t say this, say that!” Or if she catches a team member acting with arrogance during a meeting, he pulls him aside after the meeting and says: “Hey man, you’re way too smart to act like this. When you did that, this is how people saw you. Is this the kind of reputation you want to have? If you keep doing this you won’t last long here, and I want you to be successful!” With proper coaching and feedback, most people learn how to become more humble or end up leaving the organization.

Get rid of narcissists at all levels of the organization

In our research in healthcare organizations, we asked employees, middle managers and executives to think about a leader that they worked with in the past and that they have observed to be the least successful in terms of improving outcomes in the organization and getting things done. Respondents described these leaders as those who blame others, are self-focused, inconsiderate, arrogant and insensitive, all behaviors and traits of non-humble narcissistic leaders. It is important for organizations to recognize that narcissists, while more likely to be selected as leaders (as described above), can have detrimental effects on teams and organizations in the long-term.

Putting It All Together

By hardwiring specific hiring, promotion and coaching practices throughout their organizations, leaders can create a culture and legacy of humility that remains long after their tenure in the organization ends.

★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★

To learn about how to improve your leadership and humility, please check out my new Master Class in Leading Yourself. For the first time, I am bringing together my research, coaching experience and leadership development to provide transformative leadership courses online combined with one-on-one coaching.

★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★★ ★

Amer Kaissi is a Speaker, Executive Coach, and Professor at the Department of Healthcare Administration at Trinity University. He is the author of the award-winning book “Intangibles” . Subscribe to the “Leaders are Readers” Newsletter: www.amerkaissi.com