Leadership Development – Humility as Leadership

Humility as Leadership

Leadership expert Dan Rock­ well says the “secret sauce” ingredient that makes great leaders great is humility. Here are Rockwell’s suggestions for practicing humility as a leader.

 

1.  Turn outward and celebrate others.
2.  Actively seek and act on feedback.
3.  Tell people what you’re learning.
4.  Honor those who influence you.
5.  Enable others to do what you do.
6.  Focus on giving.
7.  Acknowledge frailties and weaknesses while still reaching for new heights.
8.  Listen.
9.  Build relationships.
10.  Bring compassion and empathy to challenge.
11.  Say “thank you.”
12.  Laugh at yourself.

 

“Think of humility as a prac­tice,” Rockwell says. “Sometimes you feel it. Sometimes you practice it.”

 

Really good suggestions, Hard to add to things that work. Being humble not only means not being conceited and expressing it, but it also means you do not sell yourself short on your own skills and experience. As leader you need to express your thoughts and ideas, that is also being humble.

 

I do not like being the focus of attention nor a lot of fanfare on myself. Partly because I am humble and partly because I am successful because I surround myself with productive and dedicated team members and when I am successful, we are all successful.

 

When I won an award for Administrator of the Year – Technology Leader I was not anxious about being in front of a lot of people and giving a speech. But I was truly grateful and humbled that someone recommended me and I was selected. It is also because I am an introvert.

 

And in my other posts on being an introvert and reading people as well as being humble, hungry, and smart I go into more detail about them – please read the post as they are insightful.

 

 

Adapted from “Secret Sauce Sunday: One Secret from Five World Class Leaders”
by Dan Rockwell. Leadership Freak Blog. December 2017. http://leadershipfreak blog. (Creative Commons BY 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0.)

 

Leave a Comment

Popular Posts

Zero-Based Budget

We are smack dab in the heart of budget season, and if you’re a leader like me, you know what that means: lots of late nights, endless cups of coffee,

leadership-lighthouse-bulb

Leadership Thought

This thought was passed along to me to think and consider my efforts with those who resist change or something that I firmly believe in – continual service improvement.  

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Treat A Man As He Could Be

“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” Ralph Waldo

Management Is About Getting Things Done

Management is the art of getting things done through people.Mary Parker Follett   In simple terms, management is about getting things done through other people. Of course we know being

cultivating-culture

How You Made Them Feel

Why did I begin this journey? The main thought I had while completing my ITIL Practitioner Certification, there were so many frameworks, management, and leadership topics and thoughts and I