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The X Factor
I know how great is the effort needed to convince the proud of the power and excellence of humility, an excellence which makes it soar above the summits of this world. —Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
Katharine Graham, the longtime publisher of The Washington Post hosted parties and banquet events that were known around the world for their stellar guest lists, which often included presidents, kings, and princesses. She was once asked, “Mrs. Graham, you have hosted all the greatest leaders from around the world. What is the single most important trait of all great leaders?” Without hesitation, she said, “The absence of arrogance.”
Katharine Graham was one of the most powerful women in the world—yet it was her humility that defined her. In fact, President George W. Bush called her “a true leader and a true lady, steely yet shy, powerful yet humble.”
The day after Mrs. Graham’s death, the Post headline read A PIONEER WITH COURAGE, INFLUENCE AND HUMILITY.
St. Paul tells us, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” That is the way believers are supposed to live…. It is very biblical and very true that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” That is a text for all of us. It was lived by Katharine Graham.
Clearly an “absence of arrogance” was not an absence of confidence. A leader can have great self-confidence and still be humble.
All the dictators and tyrants who had inflicted so much suffering on the world—Nero, Napoléon Bonaparte, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and Qaddafi—cultivated a cult of personality around themselves and didn’t hesitate to slaughter millions just to maintain their power and privilege. Arrogance was the central pillar of their character, the trait that defined them. For a while, they held power and seemed successful—but history curses their memory.
Charles R. Swindoll once observed, “If I were to boil down all the characteristics of greatness to a single word, it would be humility.”
The Price of Arrogance, the Rewards of Humility
With great humility comes great success. —Hip-hop artist Yelawolf
Macedonian conqueror-king known as Alexander the Great’s arrogance was so great, he considered himself a god in human form. By age twenty-six, he ruled the eastern half of the ancient world. By age thirty, he had conquered nearly all the known world and had spread Greek culture throughout those conquered lands.
In Power, Ambition, Glory: The Stunning Parallels between Great Leaders of the Ancient World and Today, Steve Forbes and John Prevas tell us that “Alexander is a cautionary example for today’s leaders.”
For Alexander it was all about conquest—or “acquisitions” in today’s corporate world. He was willing to pay whatever price was necessary to achieve his goal of nothing short of conquering the world. Though idolized in the West, he is not always viewed in the East as an enlightened leader because he brought suffering, enslavement, and death to millions.
Leaders like Alexander often come to believe that they alone know what is best. They stop seeking, listening, and learning. There is always a high price to pay for arrogance.
That ancient font of wisdom, King Solomon, warned, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).
One of the greatest dangers we face in our attempt to remain humble is that the very moment we notice we are humble, we become proud of our humility—and in that instant, our humility evaporates.
Humility may be defined as “a modest and realistic view of one’s own importance.” Someone once said that humility doesn’t mean thinking less of yourself. It just means thinking of yourself less. In other words, a genuinely humble person doesn’t say, “I’m worthless,” but instead says, “I’m no more important than anyone else—and no less important, either.”
Humble people treat others as equals, which creates bonds of trust, respect, and loyalty. Humble people don’t claim to know everything, so they are teachable and eager to listen and learn. Humble people are better team players because they are not riddled with insecurity, jealousy, or envy. Humble people are willing to set aside their egos to achieve a goal or dream that is bigger than themselves. As a result, humble people usually accomplish much more than arrogant people. Humble people don’t confuse humility with humiliation. A humiliated person feels weak and enslaved; a humble person feels strong to serve others. A humiliated person feels helpless and hopeless; a humble person feels helpful and hopeful. A humiliated person feels powerless and dishonored; a humble person feels empowered and dignified. Humiliation tears down; humility builds up. Humiliation is a tragedy; humility is a choice. Genuine humility is one of the greatest strengths a leader can possess. Humble leaders are strong enough to listen to other points of view, strong enough to admit mistakes and learn from them, strong enough to celebrate the achievements and successes of others, and strong enough to surround themselves with talented people without feeling threatened or diminished.
Humility is the essential moral firewall that prevents a passionate leader from becoming a ruthless tyrant. Humble leaders recognize their own limitations, and instead of surrounding themselves with sycophants and yes-men who praise everything they do, they surround themselves with honest, faithful friends who will tell them the hard truths and keep them from becoming too full of themselves.
We must continually choose an attitude of humility—or we will choose arrogance by default. Humility is a gift we give to other people. Ironically, arrogance makes us seem small and pathetic. Humility is what makes people great.
A Short History of Humility
Humility’s strength is hidden, obscured by our blindness and the age of arrogance in which we live. —Educator David J. Bobb
In May 1782, one of Washington’s most loyal friends and patriotic officers, Colonel Lewis Nicola, wrote a letter on behalf of himself and other high-ranking officers. Under Nicola’s plan, George Washington would become “King George I”—and Nicola and his comrades would back him as king.
George Washington responded, “You could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable.” If not for Washington’s humility, the American Revolution might have produced a very different result.
Washington learned humility through setbacks and sufferings, especially during his involvement in the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1758. Those setbacks included his capture by the French at Fort Necessity in 1754 and his role in planning the disastrous Braddock Expedition of 1755.
Historian David McCullough tells us that the Continental Congress chose Washington because of his character, integrity, and humility. As president, he avoided the trappings of European royalty, insisting on an unpretentious title still in use today: “Mr. President.” When Congress approved a salary for the position, Washington refused it. The congressional delegation convinced him to take the money to avoid suggesting that public service was only for the wealthy.
In George Washington’s Leadership Lessons, James Rees, the executive director of Mount Vernon, offers this assessment of Washington’s character, “One of the most admirable aspects of Washington’s character was his sense of humility, his self-effacement, his respectful deference to others. He was quick to decline credit and quicker to assign credit to others. He was often vocal about his personally perceived shortcomings and genuinely modest when receiving praise.”
Humility has always been a key factor in the success of high-achieving people. The Hebrew leader Moses, who stood up to Pharaoh and led his people out of Egypt, was (according to the Bible, in Numbers 12:3) “a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”
The ancient Greeks prized humility and feared the consequences of excessive pride, which they called hybris, from which our English word hubris is derived.
The Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu, who lived in the sixth century BC, had much to say about the value of humility in leadership and success.
Who is the greatest example of humility in history? Most would say Jesus of Nazareth. Prominent minister Dr. Andrew Murray wrote that the life of Jesus of Nazareth was marked by one “chief characteristic—the root and essence of all his character.” What is that single attribute? Murray says, “His humility.”
Writing in the Psychology Today blog, Dr. Russell Razzaque said, “Like few leaders the world has known, (President Abraham) Lincoln proved that any leader’s first and greatest victory is always that over his own ego.” The key to Lincoln’s greatness was his deep and abiding humility.
If Gandhi had been a corporation, his brand would have been “Humility.” He once said, “I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.” Gandhi was deeply influenced by the writings of the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, who based his philosophy on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, especially the Sermon on the Mount.
Here are five key principles taken from the Sermon on the Mount:
- Love your enemies
- Do not be angry
- Do not resist an evil person but turn the other cheek
- Do not lust; and
- Do not swear an oath.
Great leaders are always humble leaders—confident, yes; passionate about their mission, yes; persistent and unyielding, yes; but always humble, never self-seeking, never arrogant.
Humility as a Business Asset
While it takes confidence to push an idea into the marketplace, it’s humility that prevents it from turning into arrogance, the idiot cousin of the confident businessperson. —Branding strategist Erika Napoletano
NFL Kansas City Chiefs’ head coach Herm Edwards said after Owner Lamar Hunt’s passing, “He lived his whole life to make a difference, not just to make a living. We can learn something from that. He’s very humble, maybe the most humble [man] I’ve ever been around. In today’s world, that’s something that you marvel at.”
Management experts Ken Blanchard and Scott Blanchard (Ken’s son) conduct “Egos Anonymous” sessions for top executives in big companies. They talk about the times their arrogance has hindered them from dealing with business problems, peers, clients, or employees. Executives open up and confess their ego-driven mistakes. Then Ken and Scott help them develop humility-based strategies to overcome their ego-driven habits and behaviors. “The ego is one of the biggest barriers to people working together effectively,” Ken and Scott wrote in Fast Company.
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started their company with a philosophy called The HP Way—a foundation that was consistent with who they were and what they believed. The HP Way provided a formula for an enduring organization. It is best expressed in these five statements of principle:
- We have trust and respect for individuals.
- We focus on a high level of achievement and contribution.
- We conduct our business with uncompromising integrity.
- We achieve our common objectives through teamwork.
- We encourage flexibility and innovation.
The HP Way was an innovative idea from an innovative company. No other major corporation operated on a set of principles like these. Before Hewlett and Packard built their company, corporations always treated profit as king. But according to the five principles of The HP Way, the company was going to put individuals, contributions to the community, integrity, teamwork, and innovation ahead of profits.
The HP Way is a formula for organizational humility. It is based on the personalities and principles of two humble guys,
Here are seven examples of humble leadership traits:
- Humble leaders are always learning. They don’t assume they have all the answers. They are humbly curious.
- Humble leaders are servants. They understand that their success is built on the successful efforts of everyone in the organization.
- Humble leaders respect the individual. That means respecting employees—and customers. It means listening to people, then letting them know that you hear them and you empathize with them. It also means helping them to meet their goals.
- Humble leaders surround themselves with smart people. Arrogant, ego-driven people are essentially insecure. Legendary advertising man David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, read, “If you always hire people who are smaller than you are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If, on the other hand, you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants.”
- Humble leaders surrender control. Arrogant people have a dysfunctional need to control everything. They tend to be demanding and inflexible. But humble leaders are comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity. Yes, they hold their subordinates accountable for results—but they empower their subordinates to make decisions about how to achieve those results.
- Humble leaders demonstrate genuine empathy and caring for subordinates. When players know their coach is truly interested in their best interests, they will run through walls for that coach.
- Humble leaders treat customers like royalty. Businesses that truly listen to their customers and serve their needs are built to last. This is true no matter what business you’re in.
Your humility just might be your most important business asset. Your humble willingness to listen and learn, to admit mistakes and change course, to be a servant to others, to respect and care for the employees who work with you, to demonstrate empathy and caring for your subordinates—these are assets that will always contribute to your business success and your bottom line. How you live out humility in your business life is up to you to decide.
Genuine Humility—or Just an Act?
There is no human trait more attractive than genuine humility. And there are few traits more unappealing than false humility. Jonathan Pearson, pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Orangeburg, South Carolina, writes: “One of the most prideful things you and I can do is show false humility. False humility is nothing more than pride with a mask… People can see through our disguise.”
Genuine humility is quiet, even shy. Humility doesn’t announce itself. Genuine humility must not only be learned; it practically has to be burned into our souls with a branding iron. It usually takes a number of humiliating experiences for us to learn authentic humility. And just when we think we are making progress toward a truly humble attitude, we are shocked to discover that we still have a lot of arrogance lurking within, plotting to take over.
“Pride makes us artificial,” said Thomas Merton, “and humility makes us real.”
Here are some practical ways we can become more authentically humble as we learn to remove the false masks of humility we hide behind:
- Take time to reflect on the person you are—and the person you want to be. We need to remember that it’s easy, over time, to become someone we really don’t want to be. In order to guard against a fall from grace, we need to step back, look at the big picture of our lives, and reflect on who we are—and who we truly want to be. We need to think about how we treat the people around us, from our closest family members to the people who mow our lawns and fill our water glasses at the restaurant. Have we improved with age and achievement—or have we become the kind of people we used to detest?
- Ask a few trusted friends to be brutally honest with you.
- Immediately and humbly admit your faults and failures. In other words, apologize without delay. Anyone who tries to achieve anything is bound to make mistakes. The greater your goals, the bigger your potential blunders. When a leader genuinely admits failings and errors of judgment, people are quick to forgive. President Reagan was able to put the Iran-Contra scandal quickly in the rearview mirror. The scandal clouded the Reagan presidency for just four months, from November 3, 1986, to March 4, 1987. President Reagan spoke to the American people directly in a spirit of contrition, “You take your knocks, you learn your lessons and then you move on. That’s the healthiest way to deal with a problem. You learn. You put things in perspective. You pull your energies together. You change.” If you want to recover from a moral failure or a lapse in judgment, the key is to apologize fully, specifically, and humbly.
- Be honestly humble and humbly honest. Honest self-assessment and self-affirmation sounds much more humble than phony humility. False modesty tends to break down authentic humility because it becomes hard to know where your real humility leaves off and your phony humility begins. A humble leader serves his people by maintaining a calm, confident demeanor even in a crisis.
Humble Confidence—Striking the Right Balance
In order to achieve great goals, we need confidence and humility in perfect harmony. We need to have confidence in our abilities, trusting that, with hard work, focus, and clear goals, we can and will succeed. Yet we must never let our confidence turn into arrogance. Alongside our confidence, we need a humble and unpretentious sense of ourselves as fallible human beings with much to learn. We need confident humility. Or if you prefer, humble confidence.
Management researchers Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, authors of Good to Great, spent five years studying the traits of executives whose companies achieved greatness, according to a number of objective benchmarks. Collins and Porras found that executives who exemplified “a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will” achieved what they called “Level 5 Leadership.”
Humility is not a personality trait, like being shy and introverted. Humility is an attitude choice that even ambitious and extroverted people can make. Humility is the absence of arrogance, the choice to maintain a modest and realistic estimate of one’s own importance.
Gautam Mukunda, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School and author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter, writes in Fast Company, “Of all the leaders I have studied, Lincoln is the one I am most certain was truly great. This is because Lincoln uniquely combined the highest levels of two seemingly antagonistic traits. Lincoln was both supremely confident and supremely humble. Confidence allows a leader to chart his or her own course, whatever others say. Humility lets a leader acknowledge the possibility that he or she is wrong, listen to and take seriously those who disagree, and by doing so avoid needless mistakes.”
While humbly confident leaders–like Winston Churchill—seek to inspire people to overcome obstacles and achieve greatness, narcissistic leaders deliver speeches calculated only to elevate themselves.
STEPS TO GREATER CONFIDENCE—AND DEEPER HUMILITY
- Reflect on your confidence level and ask yourself, “Am I overconfident—or under-confident?”
- Take steps to increase your healthy confidence.
- First step: Walk and talk with confidence.
- Second step: Silence negative voices.
- Third step: Take risks. Don’t be reckless, don’t take foolish gambles—but make a deliberate habit of doing the things that scare you.
- Fourth step: Look to the future. Let go of the past, especially past failures.
- Fifth step: Learn to accept compliments gracefully.
- Take steps to increase your humility.
- First step: Focus on others.
- Second step: Don’t take yourself too seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself.
- Third step: Accept your limitations. You don’t have to pretend to be all-knowing, all-wise, or all-competent.
- Fourth step: Focus on serving, not on self. One of the best ways to forget your troubles is to serve others.
Humility as a Communication Style
One of the greatest American success stories is Benjamin Franklin—author, newspaper publisher, scientist, inventor, and statesman. Franklin attributed all of his accomplishments to a lifetime commitment to a set of moral virtues, with humility chief among them.
THE HUMBLY ASSERTIVE WOMAN
Financial journalist Maria Bartiromo has enjoyed a successful career at CNN, CNBC, and Fox News. In The 10 Laws of Enduring Success, she writes about business communication, observing that humility and assertiveness go hand in hand, “Some of the greatest people I know are also the most humble. Humility doesn’t mean being wishy-washy, or letting others run over you in their climb to the top. It’s merely the understanding that you’re human.”
It’s unfair, but true: in order to succeed, women often have to work harder than men to maintain a crucial balance between confidence and humility. Maggie Wilderotter, CEO of Frontier Communications, says that humble assertiveness is a key strategy women can use to overcome the “old boy network” and advance in their careers.
To be assertive is to communicate your own needs to others. To be humble is to be sensitive to the needs of others. Successful people are humble and assertive at the same time—helping to meet the needs of others while asserting their own needs in the process. Rick Warren once said, “Humility is not denying your strengths. Humility is being honest about your weaknesses.”
Here are some practical ways you can increase your influence and success by communicating confidently and humbly:
- Avoid the appearance of bragging.
- Invite criticism, and don’t defend yourself.
- Celebrate the achievements of others.
- Practice your listening skills. Listening to others conveys caring and enables you to bridge differences with others. Master interviewer Larry King once explained why listening is such an important aspect of communicating: “I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.”
- Make friends and allies through humility. When we communicate with humility, we turn enemies into friends.
Hire the Humble
Hire people who are willing to learn and have great attitudes. —Leadership speaker Dan Rockwell
To build a successful organization, corporation, or team, hire the humble. Consider Google. They look for “intellectual humility”—the ability to learn from others, learn from experience, and learn from failure; the ability to adapt to new ideas and new situations; the ability to recognize when someone else has a better idea—even when it means discarding your own ideas. “Without humility,” said Chief HR Officer Laszlo Bock, “you are unable to learn.”
The people Bock seeks to hire at Google have that paradoxical balance of confidence plus humility. Thomas Friedman sums it up this way: “You need a big ego and small ego in the same person at the same time.” The “big ego/small ego” paradox is akin to the confidence-humility paradox.
Humility means treating everybody with respect. Businesses and organizations that nurture a culture of serving and humility have a built-in advantage over those that don’t: humility reduces conflict, builds camaraderie, boosts morale, reduces turnover, and improves customer service and satisfaction. A humble workforce tends to increase the bottom line.
People who are both confident and humble are better listeners and better learners. The only way to stay competitive in a fast-changing world is to keep listening—and keep learning.
Humble learners are always listening more than they are talking—and they listen to everybody, from leaders and authorities to the receptionist and the janitor. Important information and great ideas can come from anyone, anywhere.
Dr. Wade Rowatt, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, reports findings from his study, which “shows that those who possess the combination of honesty and humility have better job performance. In fact, we found that humility and honesty not only correspond with job performance, but…predicted job performance above and beyond any of the other five personality traits like agreeableness and conscientiousness.”
Humility—a Learnable Skill
Humility is the fear of the LORD; its wages are riches and honor and life. —King Solomon of Israel (Proverbs 22:4)
Here are some suggestions in how to choose humility and how to acquire the skill of being authentically humble:
- Make a decision to stop defending yourself and justifying yourself. When you defend yourself, you are really defending your ego and pride. Try taking responsibility and blame even when it’s someone else’s fault.
- Make a point of sharing credit and praising others. One of the best ways of sharing credit and praise is to say good things about people behind their backs.
- Practice putting yourself in other people’s shoes. When other people do things that are baffling to you, ask questions and try to understand their point of view.
- Surrender the right to be judgmental. What I mean when I talk about being judgmental is viewing others as socially, morally, or spiritually inferior to ourselves.
- Serve others. Serve your family members, your boss, your employees, your teammates, your neighbors, and even strangers. As much as possible, do your serving in secret. Serve the people who, according to society’s rules, ought to be serving you.
- Master the art of the apology. Humility is not just a trait you’re born with. Humility is a learnable skill. And humility is a choice. So make that choice. Then go out and confidently, humbly pursue your goals.
Humble Greatness
There will always be a reason why you meet people. Either you need them to change your life or you’re the one who will change theirs. —Novelist Madeline Sheehan
Pat Williams concludes his book, noting, “I have always tried to teach my children that people are what matter in this world.”