In January of 2014, my varsity basketball team defeated a local rival and it was my 100th win as the varsity basketball coach at that school (the picture for this post is of my dear friend and former assistant coach during that time). There are coaches with WAY more wins than 100, but the 100th win is a milestone of sorts. I was interviewed after the game by the local media and asked what I thought about on the occasion of the milestone. 'Names and faces' was my reply. My mind and heart were just filled with the names and faces of the young men that had played on every team I had ever coached, and every assistant coach that had dedicated time to our teams. It's one of the first times, as a leader, that I spoke clearly to the humility and gratitude that I felt for others that had been part of the journey with me. I have not always been a humble and grateful leader. To this day, ego is often my enemy. But, as I've grown in leadership, that feeling of humility has also grown.
For the point of this post, I want to define humility as thinking of yourself less and thinking of your people more. Humility and confidence can co-exist. In fact, I believe the strongest version of confidence in a leader is intentional humility. Here's why: humility is a critical ingredient to many effective leadership styles. Servant leadership and transformational leadership for example prioritize other people over the wants of the leader.
To keep digging down into this idea, I feel that sincere humility fuels empathy, and empathy is a mark of emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence is strongly correlated to effective leadership. In these very complicated times, empathy time and again proves to be an unusual predictor of leadership effectiveness. (Here's a great article about developing a culture of empathy. ) As a result, we should be more intentional about practicing humility so that we can tap into empathy that allows us to lead confidently. Did you follow that??
Here are five suggestions for practicing leadership humility that leads to empathy
Humility thrives on names and faces. It dies in crowds of the nameless and faceless. I encourage leaders of all kinds in all industries to get to know the people that you are directly responsible to lead. 'Names and faces' is another way to identify the importance of knowing your people as individuals. Leaders should know their teams, AND they should know the team members.
Express gratitude to your people. The longer I lead the more I realize that gratitude should be the lead cart not the caboose of your emotional train. I've tried to make a habit to never speak to a group without expressing gratitude to someone or about something that impacts the entire group. Be intentional about being grateful. And when you do, express it specifically to the individual by using their name.
Ask your people 'what can I do for you?' regularly. This is another intentional habit that I've tried to develop. When the phone rings or someone in my organization approaches me, I try to make 'what can I do for you?' one of the first things that comes out of my mouth. It sets the tone for me to listen to the answer and for the person I'm speaking with to sense that I want to help them.
Never assume the worst about your people. People do things that we do not understand all of the time. In our ultra-connected times we want to know why immediately and if we do not know why we tend to believe the worst of their motives. This is a huge leadership mistake. Leaders need to take the time to find out why actions where taken? What was the motivation? What was the individual experiencing when they made that choice? Taking the time to find these things out can help restore temporarily broken trust or position the leader to help the individual amend a poor decision. These benefits cannot be experienced if the leader's initial mindset is to assume the worst. Believe the best about the people you lead.
Seek out your people, particularly when they are struggling. People are hurting and struggling all of the time. It is an unfortunate part of our human existence. Leaders should tune their leadership radar to jump to action when they hear of the hurt and struggle of their people. Seeking them out can look like a phone call, a text message, a visit to their work space, or a virtual gift card. Whatever it is just make sure you spring to action and seek them out.
Never assume the worst about your people. People do things that we do not understand all of the time. In our ultra-connected times we want to know why immediately and if we do not know why we tend to believe the worst of their motives. This is a huge leadership mistake. Leaders need to take the time to find out why actions where taken? What was the motivation? What was the individual experiencing when they made that choice? Taking the time to find these things out can help restore temporarily broken trust or position the leader to help the individual amend a poor decision. These benefits cannot be experienced if the leader's initial mindset is to assume the worst. Believe the best about the people you lead.
As I close out this post and re-read it for errors, I am doubling down on the importance of these five suggestions to be an effective leader that people want to follow. Making a few of these actions a habit in your day will focus you on the names and faces of the people around you. If they sense that you are 'all in' for them, they'll go 'all in' for you. Together, you will really be able to accomplish some special things.
‘Bite Down and Don’t Let Go’ is a collection of writings on being intentional about life in a way that produces great persistence. Read about it more here.
Dr. Chris Hobbs is an educational leader with more than two decades of experience. He’s earned a few degrees and won some awards. He’s happily married to his high school sweetheart and they have three teen age children. Life is messy and complicated most of the time. You can follow him on Twitter for all sorts of inspirational thoughts and good laughs.
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