Is humility holding you back as a leader?

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Are you the one who chooses to exit or enter the elevator last, in spite of being there first? Gives up the elbow right whenever you find yourself in the middle seat of an aircraft or the one who holds back and speaks last in office meetings? If you see such patterns in your social and professional life and have a “that’s me” moment when thinking about it, stay with that thought and reflect if it’s a default action or a choice that you are making.

In my leadership consulting experience, I find many instances of senior leaders selling themselves short due to excess of team orientation and humility. Our leadership assessment data shows that emerging leaders in organisations are below median on the humility scale and around the median when it comes to cooperativeness.

They are the ones who are willing to level with authority and be direct in their communication when required. They are comfortable in promoting themselves or their teams and highlighting their impact in front of their seniors when they have done a credible deed. It’s not serendipity that they just appear at the right place at the right time. It’s the knack to take the initiative to bring yourself in the front and centre of high stake situations when you know you or your team is best positioned instead of the person or team next to you.

Interestingly enough, our engagement data shows that the high potential pool in most organisation is also the one which is more often than not less engaged than the rest and is more requiring of their managers and leaders. This talent group does not feel out of place when they need to have the courageous conversation with their managers on their next elevation, global exposure or salary hike. We have often seen managers rate people low on leadership scale in talent reviews when they find that their team members haven’t proactively engaged in a career conversation with them in the past year. We have found through our Best Employers study experience that the collective ambition and drive of high potential pool pushes the boundaries of some of the best designed talent programs and therefore also making the workplace a preferred employer.

The culture in most Asian countries is also such that it encourages humility and teamwork as virtues and make us feel guilty when we put ourselves before others. In a lot of legacy organisations which value harmony over performance have a skew in humility scores across levels. In the future of work, disruption is a given and thus survival of the fittest. The idea is not to become the overbearing and cocky person who is on the other extreme of the spectrum but find that middle ground that allows you to flex your behaviour and speak up first when you have something to contribute or ask for that elbow room when you feel like having that space.

To bring in another perspective, I often ask emerging leaders on what they find the most endearing quality in successful leaders that they have worked with. Humility does feature in most conversations. Now is that a dichotomy? Well as they say, what got you here won’t get you there. Leadership in executive positions like CEOs comes with increased authority, power and influence. Higher levels of behaviours like humility and collaboration are key compensating factors in this critical transition level from emerging to executive leader. If the leader is not aware and does not adapt, it will derail the leader sooner or later. In a lot of transition coaching journeys at CEO level these behaviours do occupy significant focus. Equally true is the fact that most managers don’t make it to emerging leader pool as they had an overdose of the very same behaviours. Perhaps a case of too much too soon.

In the movie Cars, we all love McQueen for choosing to rescue King in the piston cup race and losing the title to the self-loving Chick Hicks. But the spectators knew McQueen was going to win comfortably and, therefore, the accolades. He had the position, influence and choice. He was the nice guy who chose to finish last when he could had come first. Exercise choice before being the nice person as it may not be your turn.

The author is a Director- Talent & Leadership Consulting at Aon India.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.