Published on: Sep 24, 2015
Topics: STIA, Expressions, Temenos, Leadership, Social Labs, Vision+Agility, Methods, Events
In today’s authoritarian age, when being powerful is everything, the leaders have been forgetting the real ethics of business. Complex projects, organizational pressure, the eagerness to earn more money and above all that the dominating mindset stirs conflict in the system.
“I am better than you… I am more important than you… My decision is unbreakable since I am the boss here.” This statement shows the arrogance, conceitedness, and selfishness -- all these attributes are the exact counterparts of humility.
A leader with this kind of attitude is the worst enemy of all the workers. These type of narcissist leaders with lots of pride are forgetting the real values of humbleness. No matter how shiny leader you seem to be, if you do not possess the guts to throw away your pride, then you can’t be a true leader… The reason is pretty simple; people won’t follow you.
What Is Humility?
In Good to Great, Jim Collins says, “The characteristics of the best leaders as possessing: A paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”
Leadership expert Skip Weisman says,
“Humility is the only certain defense against Humiliation.”
It’s the exact opposite of ego--it is about constant and never ending improvement by looking deep inside you. The very best leaders are those who don’t want to take credit for everything.
As you can see Humility has been an important debate for many leaders of this millennia. But all these arguments ends with one conclusion “Humble leaders are those whom others not only want to follow but also enjoy following because of their strong leadership to achieve the shared goal of the organization.”
So, Now The Question is Why Do We Need Humility In Leadership? Is it only to get followers?
Let me put it straight! Yes! Leadership with humility is the one that others people want to follow. In this way, you can say it’s a common sense for leaders to be humble! A personal sincerity that a leader should possess.
Always keep in mind, Unless people trust you, unless people think you have their interest in mind & the interest of the organization in mind, you can’t move people. If people know you have the power, authority and prestige which you are humbly using for them and for the organization.. People start to follow such leaders.
But except followership, there are other developments that a humble leader can achieve.
You are an expert in something or a fine genius.. You have developed many application and software. And now you are the in charge of a team of many people. You know everything on the project, and you have been well appreciated by others because of your vast engineering knowledge.
When you are that level, you should always remember, there are many areas you lack at. What I want to say is, You know about the products, but maybe you are not aware how you can boost the selling of the product in the market; or how you can manage the conflicts that have been arising in your team, since you don’t have idea on human behavioural science. So, as a true leader you should always try listening to other people. Maybe somebody from your surrounding holds the solution of your query
Humility also enables you to recognize people’s flattering words. You become aware of your mistakes and weaknesses. All these principles of humility are not something that can be taught in business courses, but it’s one of the powerful attributes that a leader can utilize.
Unfortunately, most of the today’s leaders don’t accept this. They fear that it will show their biggest weakness if they start to humble towards each and every person around them. They have failed to understand that a true humble leader opens the door to the improved levels of followership. Humble leaders are not only good guides but also influencers who influence others to achieve superior results.
Google’s SVP of People Operations, Lazlo Bock, says, “Humility is one of the traits he’s looking for in the new hires.” A leader who can say “What can we do together to solve this problem. I’ve contributed my part, and I also want to hear from all of you.” He calls it intellectual humility--It’s about giving space for other people’s thinking.
Humble leaders are courageous. They never back down from challenge or fear or adversity. People always follow these leaders when tough decisions are to be made. They are well respected and what distinguishes them from others is the sense of openness.. They are candid by nature and have strong self-awareness. Humble leaders always surround themselves with people who are encouraged to speak up, when they have different points of view.
Humility enables the leaders to grow.. How?
Simple, If you know that what you don’t know is far greater than the things you know, you will eagerly search for the wisdom. Humility also persuades others towards you. People always get very motivated by seeing humble leaders. They feel happy for working with such leaders. No matter how ambitious you are, underneath of everything you need humbleness.
Temenos Change Agent Training
We Need Humility, Not pride
Pride is an obstacle for a potential leader. Self-sufficiency is a good thing, but not pride. “If you have pride, that should be put to use in serving the organization in a better way.” says Temenos + Agility founder, Siraj Sirajuddin.
Our organization provides the training program for different change agents. We give them the chance to develop as organizational change agents by the help of certain stance, practice, skills, and tools. The first and the most basic standpoint we want to thrive in the young leaders is humility.
We believe that the most effective leaders are humble; they learn by serving the organization. Our most basic goal is to train the change agents to develop the stance of humility towards the transforming enterprise, with transforming participants and other transforming change agents. Through this stance, we hope to enable the leader’s own interpretation and application of servant leadership.
It will be too arrogant to say that we can teach you humility; we believe as long as you have a strong sense of humanity, you have humility inside you. Just think us as the counselors who will able to guide and flourish the faithful leadership that’s already inside you.
As a leader, your success comes from the success of your organization and the success of your people. Keeping that in mind our training program develops the idea of humility in change agents to face any kind of situation in the organization.
Your Takeaway through this training will be your own personal and professional development by learning self-reflection; admittance of mistakes; acceptance of ambiguity and tending of other’s needs. These are all the case studies we performed for many years in many organizations, and our organization achieved a higher rate success in organizational transformation and development through this basic training method.