Humility: The Key to Successful UN Leadership

The UN is a complicated place to work. So many different agencies, competing goals, multiple cultures all united by a huge, slogging bureaucracy. At the same time, the UN does some of the most important work on the planet - from tackling climate change, to promoting peace, to reducing poverty - it has a profound mandate. Given its task, having good people is paramount to producing good results for teams, for beneficiares, for Agenda 2030, the Paris Agreement and beyond. So what does successful leadership look like at the UN? Humble, honest, empathetic.

Some recent history first.

In 2017, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres proposed a reform agenda which included the Action on Leadership task team, facilitated by the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC) . The joint task team produced a unified and comprehensive framework, known as the UN System Leadership Framework that defines the dimensions of UN leadership in alignment with the UN Charter. The first of its kind, the framework highlights the nine characteristics that UN personnel should apply to their work: norm-based, principled, inclusive, accountable, multi-dimensional, transformational, collaborative, self-applied and pragmatic-oriented. Several UN Agencies have since integrated the framework for value based leadership within their organizations and the UNSSC supports through training and learning events.

Leadership values: empathy, integrity and humility.

In terms of individual leadership values, the UN System Leadership Framework does not mention humility per se, but it does say employees must not just preach UN principles, but live by them: to inspire, not to command. It also asks that personnel demonstrate empathy in interpersonal relationships and transparency in how they manage and use the resources entrusted to them. I would narrow it down to three key leadership values: integrity, humility and empathy. Why are these values important?

Recent studies in organizational psychology emphasize the importance of hiring individuals that are both capable and humble. Science shows people are more likely to?leave their jobs ?because of a lack of support or connection to their manager. How leaders behave and how they make other people feel are the strongest drivers of talent retention. In a recent study 57 per cent of employees quit because of their supervisor. It's clear: to attract, retain and grow talent, organizations need to prioritize what was once thought of as 'soft' skills: empathy, integrity and humility.

“You're looking for three things, generally, in a person. Intelligence, energy, and integrity. And if they don't have the last one, don't even bother with the first two."

Warren Buffet

Facing outwards, we, at the UN, represent and defend international values for human rights, equality, justice and peace. Leaders who are humble, honest and empathetic are necessary to build trust and to achieve results. In an analysis of?28 studies , the most successful negotiators cared as much about the other party’s success as their own. They didn’t declare victory until they could help everyone win. Hiring and retaining individuals at all levels with strong values is invaluable for the UN 'talent' equation and success of the UN's work.

A story I love to retell, unabashedly borrowed from organizational psychologist Adam Grant , is that of Costa Rican diplomat, Christiana Figueres (yes, she's also my namesake!). In 2010, the UN appointed her to build a global agreement to fight climate change. She needed to get 195 countries on board, and one of the toughest was Saudi Arabia. Their economy was dependent on oil and gas exports, so they had every incentive to keep profiting from that fossil fuels than reducing their carbon footprint. When she met with officials she deliberately chose an “understanding strategy ” - Ms. Figueres wanted to know what help Saudi Arabia needed from other countries. She asked Saudis about their long-term interests and goals and learned they wanted to diversify their economy. Other countries stepped up to create opportunities for Saudi Arabia to invest in other exports, and that became a key ingredient in bringing Saudi Arabia on board with the Paris Agreement. Putting aside your personal agenda or goals, listening and understanding others and knowing that you won't have all the answers is humility and empathy in action.

"When you think about all the big challenges that we face in the world, empathy is probably the quality we need the most. We need our leaders to be able to empathize with the circumstances of others; to empathize with the next generation that we’re making decisions on behalf of. And if we focus only on being seen to be the strongest, most powerful person in the room, then I think we lose what we’re meant to be here for.”

Jacinda Arden

In 2020, the Dag Hammarskj?ld Foundation published a compilation of stories about UN Leadership shared by individuals within and outside the UN system. Though not a scientific study, it is a description of experiences that highlight emotional intelligence – exercising courage, grit, humility, compassion and empathy. It tells how such traits and actions are perceived and the impact they have had on people during unfathomable tragedy or intense pressure, but also during everyday of a life at the UN. It concludes with questions on how the UN could place ethics and integrity as core leadership qualities during recruitment and appointments and how to strengthen a more coherent leadership culture overall. Below I share some examples of what I've seen work well at UN Agencies truly taking these questions to task.

How do you find and cultivate a skilled but also empathetic, honest and humble workforce at the UN?

During hiring, the UN does a pretty good job of testing for competence. Skills are measured in technical tests and interviews. But measuring integrity, humility and empathy is a whole other can of worms. According to this Stanford study , when hiring teams select managers or leaders they tend to select overconfident and charming individuals, and overlook the quiet and talented ones. In contrast, teams that self-select their leaders rarely propose someone who doesn't have leadership values.

The UN's competency-based interviews, while not perfect, do help tackle this conundrum: candidates share challenging scenarios and how they handled them. But the teams at the UN that have successfully hired people with strong hard and soft skills go a step beyond and include psychometric screenings for personal values. While commonly employed for senior level positions, I argue that we need to start earlier, with all roles, to emphasize the importance of strong values, but also get more of the right people on board across the organization.

Another useful tool, perhaps less costly to implement, is reference checking with an emphasis on humility. Every reference check can include a question like: Tell me how a candidate treats other people? Tell me how a candidate handles taking credit? Tell me how a candidate responds to feedback?

I've also seen the power of 360 reviews, rarer during hiring, but more common for promotion. Several UN agencies have made 360 reviews a mandatory part of performance assessments for senior employees and can include inputs from internal and external employees and stakeholders. Asking questions that provide insight on integrity, humility and empathy should be built into the 360. This is a tool that, coupled with coaching or mentorship, can help people put the values into practice. It could be applied to all staff, at least every three to five years and at the time of any promotion.

Apart from hiring and retention, how do you grow these values among current employees?

Some people say you can't teach leadership, and it's even tougher is to teach values. I don't think it's impossible. Everyone has the capacity to be humble, honest and kind. Sometimes we need help tapping into those qualities. The first step is knowledge: show and tell that integrity, humility and empathy work. Shout it from the rooftops. UN leadership programmes are the obvious place to share the science and data on humility and integrity. We then need to make knowledge sharing a habit. Managers can share information with teams at retreats and also tell the success stories, e.g. Christiana Figueres during meetings or before an important intervention.

I think empathy is really important, and I think only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our full potential.

Jane Goodall

Then, these traits need to be modeled and rewarded. No one is perfect. Let's acknowledge that right here. But in the moments when people have exemplified these values, let's show them our appreciation. Make it ok and rewarding for us to flaunt our 'soft' skills. Make it a conversation topic when developing a strategy or working with communities or mediating a conflict or negotiating a climate change agreement. Choose an 'understanding strategy'. And let's set benchmarks and monitor our progress. I'd love to see a leadership values dashboard that says how many staff have undertaken 360 reviews, participated in coaching, been trained on leadership and used/passed psychometric testing :).

Having worked in corruption for many years, I know we can't have leadership success without also addressing leadership failures (e.g. discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment and abuse of authority). Efforts to reward the positive will not be enough if accountability is not ensured when failures do occur. Morale and results suffer deeply by egregious mismanagement and action has to be taken to correct the wrongs. Otherwise the focus on leadership values will be mere lip service that has detrimental effects on staff morale.

In sum.

The UN is a wild and crazy place. Just think about our impossible mandate: world peace, climate change action, poverty elimination. We can't do the great work without the best workforce. Private sector knows this: Mckinsey's book with lessons from 67 CEOs tells of the successes of humble, servant leadership. We need to go beyond competence and drill deeper to hire and cultivate the values that make organizations a success: integrity, humility and empathy. Let's hire, cultivate and retain these awesome people before private sector gets them all :).