As a leader,
- Do you accept responsibility as a leader, or do you blame them when something or someone fails?
- How often do you brag about your teammates’ achievements instead of bragging about your own?
- How often do you turn the conversation to someone else instead of focusing on yourself?
- Do you focus on amplifying someone’s strengths, or do you focus on their shortcomings?
I recently came across Dan Rockwell’s 2018 post titled “The Seductions of Arrogance Compound the Elusiveness of Humility,” in which he talks about the stress between arrogance and humility that we all have to grapple with every day and how all of us can practice humble leadership.
It is an incredibly thought-provoking blog post that forces you to question your intellectual arrogance, sometimes masquerading as humility. Please take five minutes to read it.
I am reproducing below Dan’s five practices of humble leadership:
#1. Raising your hand when it’s time to take responsibility.
- You are responsible when your team struggles and fails.
- A lousy boss is a poor excuse for half-hearted service.
You’re arrogant when the weaknesses and failures of others consume your thinking.
#2. Clapping for the team when you work harder than others.
- Brag about others, especially when you feel like tooting your own horn.
- Say, “We,” most of the time.
#3. Combining passionate drive with humility.
The greatest rigor of humble leadership may be combining passionate drive with gentleness, kindness, and compassion.
You’re a doormat if you have humility but no drive.
#4. Courageously learning when you’re the smartest person in the room.
#5. Turning conversations toward others and away from yourself.
Feelings of superiority are the sweet elixir of arrogance.