Thaindian News

Washington, Dec 9 (IANS) The mantra of effective leadership is the good, old-fashioned humility for which there is no substitute.

“Leaders of all ranks view admitting mistakes, spotlighting follower strengths and modelling teachability as being at the core of humble leadership,” says Bradley Owens, who led the study.

“And they view these three behaviours as being powerful predictors of their own as well as the organisation’s growth,” said Owens, assistant professor of organisation and human resources at the university at Buffalo, the Academy of Management Journal reports.

Owens and co-author David Hekman, his counterpart at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, asked 16 CEOs, 20 mid-level leaders and 19 front-line leaders to describe how humble leaders operate at the workplace, according to a Buffalo statement.

Although the leaders were from vastly different organisations — military, manufacturing, health care, financial services, retailing and religious — they all agreed that the essence of leader humility involves modelling to followers how to grow.

“Growing and learning often involves failure and can be embarrassing,” says Owens. “But
leaders who can overcome their fears and broadcast their feelings as they work through the
messy internal growth process will be viewed more favourably by their followers.

“They also will legitimise their followers’ own growth journeys and will have higher-performing organisations,” adds Owens.

The researchers found that such leaders model how to be effectively human rather than
superhuman and legitimise “becoming” rather than “pretending”. But some humble leaders were more effective than others, according to the study.

Owens and Hekman offer straightforward advice to leaders. You can’t fake humility. You
either genuinely want to grow and develop, or you don’t, and followers pick up on this.