Humility: The Final Stage of Confidence

In today's episode, we're continuing our leadership series on leading with character and competence with a discussion on the second cornerstone of character: humility. Humility is a performance accelerator; it allows you to develop, grow, and progress faster. It's the culminating stage of a leader's emotional and psychological development, and it's also one of the most difficult character traits to cultivate. This is a unique episode that will leave you with insights on humility that you haven't considered, which you can use to improve your leadership today.

(04:27) What is humility? Tim and Junior describe the behaviors of humble leaders and define humility. "Humility is the unresented acknowledgement of two things: number one, you need other people's help, and number two, you don't know everything. It puts you in a different frame of mind, a different attitude, a different emotional state."

(08:26) Humility is a performance accelerator. "The problem with hubris is that you become your own obstacle, you get in your own way, and with humility, you're able to move on, learn from the experiences that you're having, and go forward unencumbered, unrestrained."

(17:31) Humility is an acknowledgment of the truth. "Humility is simply an acknowledgement of the truth of things, and the truth is we are all dependent, and we do need each other. So an attitude of humility is really appropriate in human interactions as we think about how we need each other and how we should help each other. If you live life and you're hoarding, trying to hoard recognition, praise, honor, and credit, it diminishes others."

(25:19) To achieve humility, we must overcome insecurity without using junk theories of superiority. "One of the distinguishing characteristics of those who have humility is that they stare right into their imperfections and weaknesses. They acknowledge them, they know what they are, and paradoxically, that is actually what enables them to stand with so much confidence. Because they're not worried about being found out, there's not something that they're trying to hide, that they're self-conscious about and worried that people are going to discover."

(35:36) Leaders can think about their inquiry vs. advocacy ratio to overcome personal hubris. "If we're just stuck in advocacy mode, then we're not getting the feedback, and the reality that we're looking at may be distorted."

(41:00) Humble leaders are kind and demanding at the same time. "These are humble, very effective leaders that have evolved as leaders to a world-class level. They delegate more with the understanding that people grow only when they leave their comfort zones and travel to their outer limits. They realize that stretching, because they put a lot of stretch in the goals they give people, is both painful but also exhilarating. And that's the only place where people can build new capacity."

(51:13) To gain humility, you must develop a high tolerance for candor. "Ask yourself, on a scale from 1 to 10, what is your tolerance for candor?"

(54:45) Tim and Junior share additional characteristics of humble leaders. "They don't need to hear themselves talk, so they don't clamor for airtime. They stop telling the world how smart they are. They don't subscribe to the leader as an expert model in which the leader is the repository of all knowledge. They value the appreciation and recognition of their peers when it's meaningful, but it's not a requirement. They have learned that leadership often requires that we go for long periods and long distances without reward or recognition, that we toil in obscurity, and that due credit might come, but it might not. Final-stage leaders learn to fuel their efforts through intrinsic rewards. They learn that achievement carries its own compensation."

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Leading with Character and Competence