Business Insight: Training in simple actions may help executives conjure up humility

Business leaders who are able to demonstrate humility may be more effective at empowering employees and improving their organizations, according to research by a group of academics, including a Rutgers Business School professor of management.

While previous research has described the benefits of leader humility, Professor Junchao “Jason” Li, who teaches management skills at Rutgers Business School, said little is known about how to foster humility in leaders.

The new research published last year in Organization Science showed that simple actions might be enough to provide stimulus to foster leader humility, especially if they occur at critical times, for instance, before a key team meeting or at the start of a decision-making process. 

Li worked on the research with four other academics to determine if thinking about family members or friends or others who the leader cares about deeply would make them more willing to connect with others, feel more secure, and trigger more humble leadership behavior. 

The researchers invited 97 leaders and 194 of their followers to participate in our daily study across 10 days. Each morning, a leader would be randomly assigned to either write about a loved one or an acquaintance of theirs or some beloved objects. After that, leaders will indicate how they feel. At the end of the day, followers rated the humility the leader demonstrated that day. 

Li said there are practical implications of the study’s findings: Leaders can be trained to remind themselves to reflect relationships with their significant others before important moments where leader humility is needed (for example, important meetings where leaders need to listen more and be open to negative feedback). Organizations also can encourage leaders and employees to place personal items (such as pictures and souvenirs) related to their significant others in their workspaces.

“The sight of these items can be a natural stimulus of activating one's relationship schema with their significant others,” Li said. “As a result, employees will experience greater warmth, security, and in turn, greater humility toward their coworkers and subordinates.” 

Li said his interest in the research stemmed from his research focus on employee voice or willingness to communicate ideas, suggestions and concerns to supervisors seeking to change the status quo.

“Given the increasing competition and pressure for innovation, organizations are increasingly relying on the perspective and feedback of employees to identify problems that hinder performance and improvement,” Li said. However, candid communication isn’t always welcomed by supervisors who view suggestions as a challenge to their authority and want to protect their egos more than they want to do what’s best for their team or organization. 

“Humble leaders are those who have less of an ego and are willing to recognize their weaknesses and the contribution of others,” Li said.

The study is believed to be the first research to show leader humility can be contextually fostered by simple interventions.

 “While previous research has demonstrated the benefits of leader humility, it has mostly been considered as an individual personality trait,” Li explained. “The work of fostering humility in organizations falls to recruiting people with a humbler personality, or leaders and employees need to go through systematic trainings that take time to fundamentally change their mindset and orientations.”

Li worked on the study with four other academics: Lin Wang, professor, Sun Yat-sen University; Bradley Owens, professor, Brigham Young University, Lihua Shi, assistant professor, Guangzhou University; Mo Wang, professor, University of Florida. 

-Susan Todd