Humility in Leadership: Research Suggests Modest Managers Foster Better Teams

Research is increasingly highlighting humility as a key trait for effective leadership and organizational success. Dr. Michal Lehmann, who experienced a personal epiphany during postpartum depression and a career crossroads, found that embracing a sense of her own smallness in a vast world was liberating and became the foundation for her doctoral research. This feeling, akin to 'awe,' shifted her perspective from self-doubt to a recognition of external influences, prompting her to explore the concept of humility.

Historically, humility was often associated with insecurity, contrasting with the late 20th-century emphasis on assertiveness and dominance in leadership. However, a growing body of research, including work by Lehmann and colleagues like Professors Joshua Hook, Daryl Van Tongeren, and Don Davis, redefines humility not as a lack of self-confidence, but as a realistic assessment of one's abilities and limitations, coupled with openness to new information and consideration for others. Dr. Anna Dorfman from Bar-Ilan University notes that humility is the opposite of overconfidence rather than confidence itself.

Measuring humility presents challenges, as self-reporting can be paradoxical. Researchers often rely on external observations or indirect assessments. Despite these complexities, studies indicate that humble leaders foster trust, satisfaction, and creativity among their teams. A 2022 meta-analysis of 53 studies by researchers at Renmin University in Beijing found a correlation between humble leadership and team trust, employee satisfaction, and willingness to speak up. While one meta-analysis showed improved team performance, another did not find direct performance benefits for humble leaders or organizations with more of them, suggesting a nuanced picture.

Lehmann's research also explores intellectual humility, the understanding that one doesn't know everything and the openness to being wrong. This trait predicts empathic accuracy, the ability to correctly perceive others' emotions, and can protect against empathic distress, fostering empathic resilience. Furthermore, intellectual humility has been linked to better team performance by enabling teams to leverage their differences more effectively and even to protect against death anxiety. Humility is not a fixed personality trait but is situational, influenced by context, motivation, and relationships. Practicing humility can involve techniques like describing situations in the third person, deep listening, seeking awe-inspiring experiences, and rewarding a lack of knowledge rather than punishing mistakes.

Experts emphasize that humility is not necessarily about being modest or introverted, as previously thought. It is often context-dependent; individuals may exhibit different levels of humility depending on the person they are interacting with. While expressing humility can be beneficial, especially for perceived experts, it can also carry risks if others exploit openness or if it undermines perceived authority. External factors like stress and motivation also play a role. Future research is exploring how artificial intelligence might influence human humility, questioning whether AI agents should be treated as team members and how their capabilities might affect our own sense of knowledge and humility.