We worry too much about feelings. Don’t worry about feeling angry, defensive, resentful, or arrogant. Response makes emotions harmful or helpful.
Jim Collins learned the best leaders display a powerful mixture of personal humility and indomitable will. Intellectual humility is more than a feeling. You can influence emotions, but you can’t control what you feel. Humility is a way of thinking and acting, not a feeling.
Can humble leaders:
- Take charge?
- Give tough feedback?
- Stand up to resistance?
- Act with authority?
- Make decisions others don’t like?
The question isn’t can humble leaders give tough feedback. The question is how you think and act when confronting poor performance.
See humility by reflecting on hubris. Arrogance looks like…
- Inflexible knowing.
- Dismissiveness.
- Promoting fear.
- Micromanaging.
- Taking credit.
- Dominating conversations.
- Unethical self-promotion.
Intellectual humility is a way of seeing yourself and others when taking charge or making tough decisions, for example.
Advantages of intellectual humility:
In 2016, professors from Pepperdine University broke the concept of intellectual humility into four components:
- Having respect for other viewpoints.
- Not being intellectually overconfident.
- Separating one’s ego from one’s intellect.
- Willingness to revise one’s own viewpoint.
Application:
Hardship is advantage. I heard someone say, “Humble leaders get better when things get harder.” Learners grow when challenged.
The success of others is joy. Others aren’t a threat. You can’t do everything. Isolation is the enemy.
Challenge is an opportunity to invite others in.
10 questions humble leaders ask:
- Who might know?
- How can I include others?
- What do I need to learn?
- What am I missing?
- What’s the truth?
- Where do I need to adapt?
- What do I need to learn from this challenge?
- How can I empower others?
- What if I’m in the way?
- How can I maximize the talent of others?
What would happen if you or your leaders adopted intellectual humility? What would stop happening?
Still curious:
My Disappointing Adventure with Humility
Humility: 10 Simple Ways to Quiet Arrogance in Yourself and in Others