Confidence is a great strength in a leader when used appropriately. But we often celebrate its upsides while turning a blind eye to its drawbacks.
An appropriately confident leader is a great asset to their organisation and the people they lead. They tend to be open, assertive, reliable and honest.
However, we are all familiar with the notion that we can have too much of a good thing and most of us will have worked for someone who was all too sure of their ability.
Over-confident leaders often focus on their personal goals and achievements at the expense of their team or the wider organisation and blame others when something goes wrong.
Such leaders can also be closed off and hard to reach. After all, why be open to feedback when you already know everything there is to know?
This armoured and potentially arrogant way of being is a significant obstacle to good engagement and long-term success.
The strengths of the humble leader
By contrast, let’s consider the strengths of a humble leader, which include:
- Listening
- Teamwork
- Soliciting feedback
Humble leaders encourage others to speak up and give their opinions, regardless of their position in the company. As Steve Jobs once said:
It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
Such leaders are also commonly associated with positive traits such as sincerity, modesty, truthfulness, fairness and authenticity.
With so many positive associations with humility, why are so many business leaders so reticent about being humble?
Perhaps it’s because we’re bombarded with stories of strong, charismatic leaders in the business press. Or we’re influenced by images of strong leadership in the media. Or we just don’t want to risk appearing to not know the answer, doubt ourselves or be vulnerable. Reframing what it means to be a leader is a helpful starting point in shifting this mindset.
All coins have two sides
But what are the drawbacks of excessive humility? If there is a shadow to confidence, what is the shadow of humility?
For ourselves, if our doubts inflate, we can undermine our confidence and feel like an imposter who doesn’t know enough to deserve the role. A common fear around this is the sense that we got where we are by luck and will get found out someday. This emotional state can lead to rumination and dwelling on mistakes and feedback in a self-critical way that undermines learning and risk appetite.
For the people we lead, we might not be there for them when they need us.In conclusion, as with most leadership traits, there is a balance to be struck between confidence and humility. Too much of a good thing doesn’t seem to work and the best leaders have learned know how to avoid the shadows and demonstrate both confidence and humility positively and, paradoxically, often at the same time.
As author Jim Collins wrote in his book Good to Great, those chief executives who most often helped to transition their companies to outperform their competition exhibited two key traits:
- Humility
- A will to advance the cause of the whole organisation
The empirical evidence is that both humility and confidence are critical to success.
