Leading with Humility

Make a list of traits you think are most associated with leadership success [I’ll wait].

My guess is that humility didn’t make your list. After all, it is not a term often associated with icons like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. And for those that possess their unique blend of brilliance and magnetism, humility would probably not be the optimal approach. But for the rest of us, humility can play a critical role in the success of our teams and ourselves. So this blog is about Leading with Humility.

The irony of career progression is that with every step you take up the ladder, the less you know about the core elements of your job. The broader your scope, the less you’re able to rely on your own expertise and skills. The more reliant you are on the capabilities of the people you work with. You might think that moving into bigger and bigger jobs would make one more arrogant -- and for some people it clearly does -- but I think it should actually make leaders more humble. 

I’m surrounded by people who know a lot more about the specifics of what they do than I could ever even hope to learn. Sometimes that can be intimidating. But it’s lucky for Uber that this is the case. Uber's Community Operations function is a hugely complex, massive and interconnected set of sub-functions and specialties that operates 24x7 in virtually every corner of the world. If I had to know everything about everything all the time, we’d have a real mess on our hands -- and I’d be in a stress-induced stupor. So humility is not a choice, its kind of foisted upon me like it or not!

Regardless of what career stage or job you are in today (or hope to be someday), humility is a virtue that will serve you well. There is no magical recipe for how to lead with humility, but here are some tips:

• Focus more on asking good questions than on always trying to personally figure out the best answers. By stimulating the thinking of all the smart and capable people you work with, you’ll be able to scale your impact. 
• Recognize that the most important contributor to your success is going to be surrounding yourself with the right team. The best teams have diversity of experience, expertise and thinking styles. That’s because such teams approach tough challenges in balanced, holistic and multi-faceted ways.
• Be careful not to “block too much light”. Give others a chance to shine. It’s the only way you’ll keep talented peers and team members engaged and contributing. Recognize that a leader’s accolades are driven mainly by what your team achieves, not your individual contributions to the results.
• Identify your mistakes. Admit them. And most importantly, learn from them. There will be many, and you will learn more from them than from all your successes combined.
• Share more about yourself than you might be comfortable doing -- particularly your insecurities. Probably not with everyone you work with, but find a core group of folks with whom you feel comfortable enough to do so. If you don’t let yourself be at least a little vulnerable at times, you won’t reap the benefits of feedback, mentoring and coaching.  
• Be genuine. Period. You might be able to ‘fake it’ for awhile, but it’s not going to serve you well long term. Disingenuousness eventually fails because people won’t trust your motives. Plus, putting on act all the time would be exhausting.
• And the hardest one -- find the right balance of being simultaneously unsure and confident. A leader needs to reflect a certain amount of confidence in order to be able to inspire and influence others. But also enough humility to invite colleagues (particular those junior to you) to advocate for their ideas and challenge your’s. And sometimes even to tell you that your idea is stupid! I’m “blessed” with many such leaders on my Uber team :)

Humility doesn’t mean that you lack authority, energy or personal insight. That would be a recipe for disaster. And there are going to be times when a particular challenge or situation requires you to be more of a dictatorial leader. The power trip of doing so can even be an adrenaline rush! But don’t let it become a bad habit. 

You know I have to tie every blog back to sports at some point right? So the analogy I’ll use here is to that of a professional baseball coach. The batters are better hitters than you. The defenders are better fielders than you. Everyone is younger, faster and stronger than you are. But you’re the one in charge. You aren’t going to be successful by trying to do your player’s jobs better than them. And your team is going to self-destruct if your stars feel like you are taking all the credit and basking in the limelight. Rather, the best thing you can do is build the right team, put your players in positions to succeed, have a good game-plan and make sure your team knows that you value their contributions and have their backs. And if you’re managing a team of second graders -- bring plenty of snacks and juice boxes.