Many of us bemoan leaders who trumpet and brag of their own self-perceived fantastic qualities.
They may claim that they are always accurate, more intelligent, better connected, hold wider networks, and simply grasp a monopoly on being right.
The boastful. The proud. The arrogant. Many of us bemoan leaders who trumpet and brag of their own self-perceived fantastic qualities. They may claim that they are always accurate, more intelligent, better connected, hold wider networks, and simply grasp a monopoly on being right.
While humans generally fall for the glittering allure of confident strong spoken leaders, we draw the line when that manager or executive becomes outright conceited.
We innately desire leaders who portray bold confidence in their jobs but humility pertaining to themselves.
Bradley Owens, Michael Johnson, and Terence Mitchell’s research details that leader humility includes three aspects. First, the leader seeks critical honest feedback and is correspondingly open.
Second, the executive freely and eagerly recognises accomplishments, contributions, and achievements of others on the team. Third, humble managers accept their own limits along with their own positive and negative traits.
Humble leaders hold multipronged positive affects on their followers and their teams. Leaders who demonstrate humility are more likely to listen to their subordinates instead of talk over them and bulldoze their ideas.
Workers whose leader listens to them are more likely to share new and innovative ideas and succeed in bringing creative solutions to boost performance in an organisation. Also, staff working for humble managers feel more empowered to shine.
However, mind the old song lyrics “Everything that glitters is not gold”. Executives that demonstrate modesty and meekness can also bring destruction to an organisation through unethical behaviour.
New research from Darren Bharanitharan, Kevin Lowe, Somayeh Bahmannia, Lin Cui, and Zhen Chen lay out a critical framework to be mindful of humility in leaders.
Humble leaders tend to be viewed favourably by others in the organisation and receive proportionally more praise for their humility and perceptions about having integrity.
Unfortunately, when a leader accumulates mountains of praise, it creates excessive mental moral credits that then can hold potential for dark behaviours unethical to or for the firm.
Moral credits mean that if an executive behaves in an unethical manner, he or she may still feel that they are moral and upright if they perceive that they have done a sizable amount of previous good deeds that represent a psychological bank account of moral credits.
The more praise then the more likely they will spend the currency and play loose with the rules.
Sounds crazy? Not really. It fits with research from back in 2016 by Maryam Kouchaki and Ata Jami showing that surprisingly people acted selfishly more frequently after being praised or commended for having integrity or exhibiting good behaviour.
So, when a leader’s humility causes others to believe and proclaim that they are people of integrity, then the more likely that those same leaders will lash out to spend their morality-based psychological currency and behave badly.
A major moderating force as to whether humble leaders go down a treacherous path towards ethical decline involves whether they have relational accountability.
The more emotionally committed and bonded a humble leader is towards his or her company or teams, the less likely they are to behave unethically. Behaving ethically exists as highly flexible.
The relational interconnectedness and emotional entanglement with others holds people accountable by decreasing someone’s desire to act unethically whether in home settings or in the workplace.
Essentially, go forth and enjoy working with and for humble managers.
But beware of over-praising them and watch out for potential corresponding unethical behaviour.
Company owners, boards of directors, and CEOs must enhance the team-building and bonding required for their managers up and down the chain of command to build affective commitment that fosters relational accountability that can mitigate acting on immoral impulses generated from the praise that humble leaders receive.
Dr Scott may be reached on [email protected] or on Twitter: @ScottProfessor
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