Don E. Davis, Joshua N. Hook, Cirleen DeBlaere, and Vanessa Placeres
We live in a society and world that is focused on the self. Children are encouraged to have high levels of self‐esteem. Young adults are encouraged to find a career that fits their unique set of gifts and talents. Adults are encouraged to maximize their potential. One drawback of these cultural foci is that individuals in today’s society might struggle with humility. Indeed, some writers have noted that we seem to struggle with narcissistic tendencies more than in years past (Twenge & Campbell, 2009).
In light of those struggles, in the current chapter we explore how humility might impact one’s work life. Relative to other constructs important to the study of positive psychology, such as subjective well‐being, gratitude, and forgiveness, the scientific study of humility had a slow start. For the first decade after the positive psychology movement began, the study of humility did not receive much empirical attention from psychologists (Davis, Worthington, & Hook, 2010). A major issue was that humility appeared to be mired in seemingly intractable measurement problems. The main concern was the validity of self‐report measures in operationalizing humility. Indeed, claiming to be “very humble” seems akin to bragging, which directly contradicts what one might expect a humble person to do. People worried that individuals with very high levels of humility might temper their responses on self‐report measures, whereas narcissistic individuals might self‐enhance their responses.
However, since 2010 the scientific study of humility has grown considerably. Given the original concerns about measurement, researchers have inundated the literature with new measures of humility. For example, a recent review of measures found 14 published measures of humility (Davis & Hook, 2014). In addition to working on measurement issues, researchers have also explored various contexts in which humility might be important. In this chapter, we review one of the more promising contexts – humility at work. Specifically, we explore the role of humility in organizational leadership. First, we provide an overview of definitions and measures of humility in the work context. Second, we review theory and empirical research on the benefits of humility in organizations. Third, we look forward and describe several exciting areas of future research.
As with many emerging research areas, definitions and measures of humility have expanded rather than consolidated. Several strategies to assess and measure humility, including self‐report surveys, other‐report surveys, observational measures, and implicit measures, have been used by researchers (for a review, see Davis, Worthington, & Hook, 2010). Although initial writing on humility questioned the validity of self‐report measures, empirical studies that have examined the accuracy of self‐report measures of humility have not found reason for grave concern (e.g., Davis et al., 2013). In fact, self‐report measures of humility show (a) strong self–other agreement when completed by well‐known others and (b) evidence of predictive validity (e.g., Cohen, Panter, Turan, Morse, & Kim, 2013). These multi‐method strategies align with a rich history in the study of personality of triangulating traits using self‐reports, other‐reports, and observation of actual behavior (Baumeister, Vohs, & Funder, 2007; Dorn, Hook, Davis, Van Tongeren, & Worthington, 2014). Thus, although researchers have historically bemoaned measurement difficulties (e.g., Tangney, 2000), we believe that the primary challenge currently facing humility scholars is the need for conceptual refinement.
Definitions of humility almost always involve both intrapersonal and interpersonal elements, with more shared consensus about the intrapersonal aspects of humility than the interpersonal facets. With regard to the intrapersonal aspects, humility involves having an accurate view of the self. Many researchers stress the importance of having an accurate view of one’s limitations, although some researchers also propose that humility involves having an accurate view of one’s strengths. For example, a humble leader does not overestimate or underestimate his or her ability relative to other team members, but rather has a “just right” view of self.
There is less agreement about the interpersonal or relational aspects of humility. For some researchers, having an interpersonal stance that is other‐oriented, rather than self‐focused, is an important aspect of humility (e.g., Davis et al., 2011). Likewise, humility likely involves interpersonal modesty, teachability, and/or a willingness to express appreciation to others (Owens, Johnson, & Mitchell, 2013). In contrast, some researchers view interpersonal characteristics as correlative to rather than constitutive of the definition of humility – meaning that the intrapsychic qualities are the essence of humility, and the interpersonal characteristics are related to (but not the core of) humility.
From a personality perspective, for someone to accurately judge a trait they have to be able to observe trait‐relevant behavior (Funder, 1995). Thus, we consider interpersonal behavior to be essential to our definition of humility, and people are only able to infer intrapsychic qualities of others indirectly through observing their own or others’ behavior. Just as accurately judging courage requires a person to see how someone responds in the context of danger, accurately judging humility requires the ability to observe how someone responds to situations that tend to evoke egotism and defensiveness (e.g., Davis et al., 2013). One reason the interpersonal aspect of humility may be so difficult to define is that humility likely refers to a very broad range of contexts relative to other virtues, such as forgiveness (i.e., how one deals with an offense) or gratitude (i.e., how one handles receiving benefits). Both these situations – and many others – pertain to humility. An offender who refuses to accept responsibility and apologize will be labeled arrogant. The target of the offense, if he or she refuses to offer any mercy, even after the offender apologizes far beyond what would be expected for the offense, might also be labeled arrogant. Someone who fails to say “thank you” may be characterized as entitled. Someone who gives gifts in order to put others in their debt could be regarded as exploitative. Consequently, there are a wide range of situations that are highly pertinent to one’s humility, including how one handles conflict, negotiates ideas, deals with power differentials, uses wealth, receives honor, or engages with cultural differences.
To further complicate the issue, individuals and groups may not understand or evaluate humility in the same way. Viewing someone as arrogant in a specific context often involves appraising that a person has committed an interpersonal offense and then refused to repair the relationship after the violation of a personal boundary or social norm. As such, people’s perceptions of humility are tied to values and cultural norms. For example, one study found that liberal communities, humility might be more associated with values such as self‐transcendence or openness; whereas in conservative communities, humility may be more associated with respecting authority (Schwartz et al., 2012). Humility scholars have yet to offer a strong theory for integrating the ways in which culture and interpersonal context affect perceptions of humility.
Attempting to circumscribe the various interpersonal qualities that are essential to humility, researchers have developed complex, multifaceted definitions and measures. For example, Davis and Hook (2014) identified six themes in the content of existing scales, including (1) being other‐oriented or unselfish, (2) openness/lack of superiority, (3) interpersonal modesty, (4) willingness to admit mistakes/teachable, (5) regulation of the need for status, and (6) spiritual or existential humility.
Another recently proposed strategy for conceptual refinement involves theorizing that different forms of humility may exist and vary based on the contexts that might strain the practice of humility (McElroy et al., 2014). In other words, some scholars have begun to contextualize the conceptualization and measurement of humility into particular subdomains, such as intellectual humility or cultural humility. From this perspective, just as self‐efficacy can be domain‐specific, we might also consider the humility behaviors associated with particular contexts. This theorizing makes the question of whether subdomains of humility are sufficiently correlated to support a general humility construct, or whether the subdomains tend to be relatively independent of one another, an empirical rather than just a conceptual one. This subdomain conceptualization provides another approach to reconcile the seemingly disparate conceptualizations of humility present within broader scholarship on humility.
As it relates to studies of organizational leadership, there are two prominent measures of humility (see Davis, Worthington, & Hook, 2010 and Davis & Hook, 2014, for reviews of other humility measures): The Honesty‐Humility (HH) subscale of the HEXICO‐PI‐R (Lee & Ashton, 2004) and the Expressed Humility Scale (EHS; Owens et al., 2013).
The HH is by far the most widely used measure of humility in general and within the study of humility in organizational leadership literature. The HH is part of a six‐factor model of personality (i.e., humility–honesty, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness) that has emerged as a formidable competitor to the five‐factor model of personality. This model has shown incremental predictive validity over the five‐factor model (for a review, see Ashton, Lee, & deVries, 2014).
Some humility scholars have reflexively rejected the HH as a strong measure of humility, but we challenge that conclusion in the current chapter. The typical critique of the HH is that, although it includes items associated with humility, it also includes content that does not align well with existing definitions of humility. The HH has four subscales: Fairness (e.g., “If I want something from a person I dislike, I will act very nicely toward that person in order to get it”), Sincerity (e.g., “If I knew that I could never get caught, I would be willing to steal a million dollars”), Modesty (e.g., “I would not want people to treat me as though I were superior to them”), and Greed‐Avoidance (e.g., “I would like to live in a very expensive, high‐class neighborhood”).
We agree that Fairness and Sincerity are less related to existing definitions of humility, but we think a reasonable case can be made for considering the Modesty and Greed‐Avoidance facets as measures of humility subdomains. Conceptually, we view interpersonal modesty as a subdomain that involves moderating one’s self‐presentation to others in order to avoid envy and jealousy. The Modesty subscale of the HH correlates strongly with other measures of humility (Davis et al., 2011). Greed‐Avoidance taps into a perhaps less often considered aspect of humility related to one’s ability to regulate motives for status, especially materialism and wealth. Without a stronger guiding framework, we certainly see no reason to exclude these subdomains over other valued aspects of humility, such as spiritual humility (Davis, Hook, et al., 2010) or cultural humility (Hook, Davis, Owen, Worthington, & Utsey, 2013).
The other prominent measure of humility among leaders is the Expressed Humility Scale (EHS; Owens et al., 2013). One practical feature of the EHS for the study of humility at work is that the three EHS subscales are particularly contextualized within the organizational context. Another strength of this measure is the rigorous qualitative approach used to inform the development of item content (Owens & Hekman, 2012). Based on interviews with executives, Owens et al. (2013) developed a conceptualization of humility that involved (1) having an accurate view of self, (2) appreciating the strengths of others, and (3) being teachable. In a series of studies on undergraduate and community samples, Owens et al. (2013) established the scale using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and provided initial evidence of construct validity. Specifically, in their first study, expressed humility was strongly related to modesty, narcissism, honesty–humility, and learning goal orientation in the anticipated directions; moderately and positively related to openness, emotional stability, and core self‐evaluation; and weakly related to conscientiousness and extraversion.
In a second study, using undergraduate management students (N = 144) working in teams for 10 weeks, expressed humility was associated with individual and team performance. Expressed humility positively predicted individual and team performance controlling for demographic variables (i.e., age, gender, race, work experience, openness, core self‐evaluation), self‐efficacy, conscientiousness, and mental ability. In addition, expressed humility showed a strong, positive relationship with performance at lower levels of mental ability. This finding suggests that humility may be especially important as a way of compensating for lower intelligence, perhaps because it is interpersonally offensive for leaders to overestimate their abilities in a leadership role, or perhaps because one pathway to effective leadership for individuals with lower cognitive abilities involves acknowledging one’s limitations and drawing on the strengths of others.
In a third field study, using employees (N = 704) from health service organizations, expressed humility was related to job engagement (r = .25), job satisfaction (r = .44), team learning goal‐orientation (r = .35), and voluntary turnover (r = ‐.14). Importantly, expressed humility predicted these constructs controlling for covariates (i.e., gender, race, tenure, and tenure under the leader).
A potential disadvantage of the EHS is that, because items were developed based on leader–subordinate relationships, these behaviors may be less relevant to assessing humility in other relationship contexts (e.g., marriage), which may explain why additional researchers have continued to add interpersonal subdomains – there are many contexts in which we might study humility, such as health care (Baughman, Aultman, Ludwick, & O’Neill, 2014; Beagan & Chacala, 2012; Brown et al., 2011; Carter & Swan, 2012; Griswold, Zayas, Kernan, & Wagner, 2007; Mahant, Jovcevska, & Wadhwa, 2012; Varkey, Peloquin, Reed, Lindor, & Harris, 2009), schools (Theoharis, 2008), couples (Farrell et al., 2015), religion (Boyatzis, Brizz, & Godwin, 2011), cross‐cultural relationships (Hook et al., 2013) – and thus many subdomains from which we might sample behaviors.
In the early years of research on humility in the context of organizational leadership, researchers focused on the potential benefits of humility for organizations and individuals within those organizations (see Table 12.1 for a summary of the method and results of studies). We organize initial research under the domain of four theories that address the importance of humility within the organizational leadership context: (1) humility and social bonds, (b) humility and morality, (3) humility contagion, and (4) humility as social oil.
Table 12.1 Description of method of studies included in review.
Source: Author.
| Article | Sample | Measure of humility | Outcome measures | Main finding |
| Basford, Offermann, & Behrend (2014) | 511 employees | Owens’ (2009) 9‐item scale of humility | Source credibility, transformational leadership, apology, apology sincerity, forgiveness, relational humility, trust in/loyalty to the supervisor, satisfaction with the supervisor, leader–member exchange, affective organizational commitment, and contextual variables |
|
| Bourdage, Lee, Lee, & Shin (2012) | 262 Korean employees | HH | Organizational citizenship behavior motives; worker‐rated organizational citizenship behavior |
|
| Cohen, Panter, Turan, Morse, Kim (2014; Study 1) | 1,020 employees; 215 co‐workers | HH | Demographic characteristics, personality, moral character, and work environment |
|
| Cohen et al. (2014; Study 2) | 494 employees; 126 co‐workers | HH | Emotions, work experience, and behaviors |
|
| Cohen et al. (2014; Study 3) | 553 employees | HH | Personality and social behavior |
|
| de Vries (2012) | 113 leaders; 201 subordinates | HH | Ethical leadership, charismatic leadership, supportive leadership, task oriented leadership, controls |
|
| Effelsberg, Solga, & Gurt(2014) | 321 employees | HH | Transformational leadership, organizational identification and selfless pro‐organizational behavior |
|
| Grahek, Thompson, & Toliver (2014) | 274 participants of leadership programs | Own scale | Behavioral ratings, importance ratings, and California Psychological Inventory |
|
| Jonason & McCain (2012) | 269 employees | HH | Big five, supervisor ratings of job skills |
|
| Lee, Ashton, Morrison, Cordery, & Dunlop (2008; Study 1) | 1,105 job applicants | HH | HEXACO |
|
| Lee et al. (2008; Study 2) | 326 undergraduates | HH | Demographics, big five, integrity, ethical decision‐making |
|
| Marcus, Lee, & Ashton (2007) | 853 employees and students from Germany and Canada | HH | Counterproductive work behavior; counterproductive academic behavior; integrity |
|
| McElroy, Rice, Davis, Hook, Hill, Worthington, & Van Tongeren (2014; Study 1) | 213 community sample | Intellectual Humility Scale, 60‐item version (own scale) | n/a |
|
| McElroy et al. (2014; Study 2) | 213 community sample | Intellectual Humility Scale | n/a |
|
| McElroy et al. (2014; Study 3) | 139 undergraduates | Intellectual Humility Scale | Dyadic trust and the big five |
|
| McElroy et al. (2014; Study 4) | 105 undergraduates | Intellectual Humility Scale | Desecration, positive and negative attitudes toward God, forgiveness |
|
| Mittal & Dorfman (2012) | 12,681 managers across 59 societies | Own scale of servant leadership | Power distance, uncertainty avoidance, humane orientation, collectivism, assertiveness, gender egalitarianism, future orientation, performance orientation |
|
| Ogunfowora (2014; Study 1) | 111 career fair attendees | Ethical leadership scale | Organizational reputation, job pursuit intentions, job pursuit behavior, ethical leadership |
|
| Ogunfowora (2014; Study 2) | 335 undergraduates | HH | Personality, perception of value congruence, value congruence, organizational reputation, ethical leadership |
|
| Ogunfowora & Bourdage (2014) | 237 undergraduates | HH | Personality, moral disengagement, leadership emergence |
|
| Ogunfowora, Bourdage, & Nguyen (2013; Study 1) | 258 undergraduates | HH | Self‐monitoring |
|
| Ogunfowora et al. (2013; Study 2) | 215 undergraduates | HH | Big five, liveliness, social boldness, and self monitoring |
|
| Oh, Ashton, & de Vries (2014) | 217 Korean military candidates | HH | Cognitive ability, contextual performance, task performance |
|
| Ou et al. (2014; Study 1) | 276 Chinese undergraduates | Own scale | n/a |
|
| Ou et al. (2014; Study 2) | 286 MBA students in China | Own scale | Core self‐evaluation, learning goal orientation, modesty, and narcissism |
|
| Ou et al. (2014; Study 3) 3 | 130 CEOs; 645 middle managers | Own scale | CEO humility, empowering leadership, TMT (Top Management Team) integration, and empowering organizational climate; middle managers’ work engagement, affective commitment, and job performance |
|
| Owens, Johnson, & Mitchell (2013; Study 1) | 165 business students; 236 business students; 124 business students; 511 health employees; 263 full‐time employees | EHS (own scale) | Modesty, narcissism, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness to experience, emotional stability, core self‐evaluation, HH, learning goal orientation |
|
| Owens et al. (2013; Study 2) | 144 business students | EHS | Openness, core self‐evaluation, self‐efficacy, conscientiousness, general mental ability, team contribution, individual performance |
|
| Owens et al. (2013; Study 3) | 704 employees of health services organization | EHS | Job engagement, job satisfaction, team leader growth orientation, voluntary turnover |
|
| Owens & Heckman (2015; Study 1) | 89 undergraduates | EHS | Team collective promotion focus |
|
| Owens & Heckman (2015; Study 2) | 192 undergraduates | EHS | Team collective promotion focus, team performance |
|
| Owens & Heckman (2015; Study 3) | 362 health services employees | EHS | Team collective promotion focus, team performance |
|
| Owens, Wallace, & Walkman (2015) | 876 employees | EHS | Leader narcissism, perceived leader effectiveness, follower job engagement, follower subjective performance, follower objective performance, controls |
|
| Schneider & Goffin (2012) | 213 undergraduates | HH | Ability to deceive, self‐deception, impression management, anxiety, test‐taking motivation, five‐factor model, counterproductive work behavior |
|
| Toorenburg, Oostrom, & Pollet (2015) | 73 recruiters | HH | Cognitive ability and hirability |
|
| Wiltshire, Bourdage, & Lee (2014) | 368 employees | HH | Perception of organizational politics, personality, counterproductive work behavior, impression management behavior, job stress, job satisfaction, control variables |
|
The social bond hypothesis suggests that perceptions of humility regulate social bonds. Social bonds cause people in interdependent relationships to react to others’ needs as their own. Davis et al. (2013) argued that one aspect of perceiving someone to be humble involves perceiving that their motives are other‐oriented, rather than selfish. Put simply, humble individuals transcend selfishness by emphasizing “we” over “me.” Humility involves integrity of thought, action, and motivation. A humble person not only has an accurate view of the self and portrays modest behavior, but also cultivates other‐oriented motives when engaging with others. Davis et al. (2013) built on theories of altruism to describe relationship factors that can promote humility (e.g., perceptions of interdependence) as well as how perceptions of humility help regulate social bonds. They suggested that appraisals of another person’s humility help to regulate the strength of social bonds. Although social bonds facilitate cooperation and close relationships, they can make people vulnerable to exploitation to the extent that someone feels a strong bond within a relationship, but that commitment and loyalty are not reciprocated by the other person. Thus, social bonds require precise regulation. According to their theorizing, seeing another person act arrogantly and selfishly should cause one to view that person as less humble and weaken a social bond; whereas seeing a person act unselfishly and in an other‐oriented way should strengthen a social bond.
These ideas converge with Stanley’s work on commitment and sacrifice (Stanley, Rhoades, & Whitton, 2010). Commitment involves one’s psychological awareness of a social bond. It involves the desire to persist in a relationship and maintain an emotional attachment (Rusbult, 1980); a decision to give up other choices or alternatives for relationship partners; and a future‐orientation for a relationship (Stanley et al., 2010). Theorizing on commitment also aligns with our premise that humility is most accurately judged while it is strained. Some situations, more than others, help clarify the strength of a social bond and degree of commitment. Diagnostic situations that strain humility help people judge commitment clearly: They contrast one’s self interest with the needs of the relationship (Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Wieselquist, Rusbult, Foster, & Agnew, 1999). In such a situation, if a person forgoes her or his immediate self‐interest for the good of the relationship, this serves as a clear signal of her or his commitment to the relationship. This is called a sacrifice‐behavior, which we also conceptualize as a humility‐relevant behavior.
In highly committed relationships, a transformation of motivation occurs wherein individuals adopt their partner’s interests as their own (Rusbult, 1980). Such dyads not only sacrifice for each other, but they enjoy it, which can initiate positive, iterative dynamics that continue to strengthen commitment (see Stanley et al., 2010, for a review). In this context, humility is relationship‐specific, but some people may cultivate greater humility across all their relationships. In other words, they may generally negotiate relationships that optimize interdependence and commitment.
This assertion about the importance of humility in relationships dovetails nicely with theorizing on leadership qualities that promote trust and commitment in employees. Namely, because of the power differential inherent in leadership–subordinate relationships, there is a need for continual monitoring of possible exploitation. According to the social bond hypothesis, when leaders violate expectations and offend subordinates, shifts in how subordinates view the character – particularly the humility of – the leader are anticipated to occur.
Several empirical studies have reported findings consistent with the social bonds hypothesis. For example, in a community sample, de Vries (2012) examined the relationship between humility, measured with the HH, and several leadership styles hypothesized to be related to the six‐factor model of personality, including ethical leadership, charismatic leadership, supportive leadership, and task‐oriented leadership. As predicted, self‐reported humility was strongly and positively related to self‐reported ethical leadership, controlling for covariates as well as method variance using other‐reports. Likewise, humility was strongly and negatively related to task‐oriented leadership. Another study demonstrated that applicants at a career fair were more attracted to working for a CEO with a reputation for being ethical, relative to a CEO with a reputation for being unethical or with an unknown reputation, and this preference was especially strong for applicants higher in humility (Ogunfowora, 2014).
In addition to helping develop social bonds through increased commitment, humility helps repair social bonds after offenses. Two studies have offered initial evidence for this hypothesis within an organizational context (Basford, Offermann, & Behrend, 2014; McElroy et al., 2014). With a community sample of employees, Basford et al. (2014) found that perceived humility was strongly and positively associated with forgiveness as well as several other relational outcomes, such as trust and commitment. McElroy et al. (2014) found that perceived humility was correlated with forgiveness of a religious leader in a sample of undergraduates. Both of these studies are limited by cross‐sectional designs, so experimental or longitudinal designs are needed to test the causal inferences implied by the hypothesis.
The studies we have reviewed thus far have focused on how employees perceive leaders. However, there is also evidence that humility affects social bonds among colleagues. For example, in a community sample, humility (measured with the HH) was associated with self‐reported selfless pro‐organizational behavior (r = .28) and a behavioral task (r = .15) involving allocating lottery tickets for personal or organizational benefit (Effelsberg, Solga, & Gurt, 2014). With another community sample of employees, participants completed measures of office politics and other work outcomes (job satisfaction, job stress, impression management behavior, counterproductive work behavior; Wiltshire, Bourdage, & Lee, 2014). The authors found a consistent pattern in which humility, measured with HH, buffered the relationship between perceiving office politics and negative work outcomes, such that the association between perceived office politics and negative work outcomes was stronger at higher levels of HH.
A second prominent line of work in humility is based on the premise that humility is closely linked with morality. If this assertion is accurate, then being able to predict humble behaviors might have critical implications for personnel selection, to the degree that humility is consistently linked with integrity‐related outcomes in the workplace such as greater ethical behavior and lower counterproductive work behavior such as retaliation, irresponsible use of company resources, or dishonesty behavior. For decades, researchers have called for a strong measure of integrity, and some initial work has explored the promise of the HH subscale for predicting behaviors associated with integrity (Ashton et al., 2014). We briefly review several recent studies that pertain to the humility–morality theory.
Across two studies using latent profile analysis, Cohen, Panter, Turan, Morse, and Kim (2014) found three groups associated with high, medium, and low morality. These groups predicted key work outcomes, including harmful work behaviors, helpful work behaviors, delinquent behaviors, and attitudes toward unethical negotiation tactics. Among a variety of measures of morality, the HH subscale and a measure of conscientiousness were the two scales that most strongly distinguished among the high‐, medium‐, and low‐morality groups.
The HH subscale has also been linked with other variables associated with morality. For example, in a sample of college students, HH (self‐reports and other‐reports) predicted integrity and ethical decision‐making above and beyond the big five personality variables (Lee, Ashton, Morrison, Cordery, & Dunlop, 2008). In graduate students studying business, the HH subscale was negatively related to moral disengagement (r = – .40) and unethical decision making (r = – .47; Ogunfowora, Bourdage, & Nguyen, 2013). In two samples of small groups assessed three times while working together on a course project, HH scores were indirectly related to greater leadership emergence via lower moral disengagement (Ogunfowora & Bourdage, 2014).
Although these initial results are promising, the value of the HH subscale has not been fully explored within the context of personnel selection. One study did replicate the six‐factor structure of the HEXICO‐PI‐R within a selection context (Lee et al., 2008), but it is important to evaluate the predictive validity of the HH in longitudinal studies, relative to other predictors of performance.
Another promising idea, called humility contagion, states that when leaders model humility, it can in turn cause their work teams to relate to each other in more humble ways, exemplified through greater willingness to accurately self‐evaluate, appreciate the strengths of team members, and learn from others (Owens & Hekman, 2015). Specifically, in three studies, the authors explored a model in which leader humility was hypothesized to lead to greater collective humility, which in turn was posited to cause members to strive to help the team reach its true potential (i.e., collective promotion focus), resulting in enhanced team performance.
In the first study, participants (N = 89) were assigned to work in teams. The teams included confederate leaders in order to experimentally manipulate leader humility. As predicted, leader humility was associated with an increase in collective humility, which in turn affected collective promotion focus. These analyses controlled for average team size, gender, and age.
In the second study, participants (N = 192 undergraduate business students) were assigned to teams for a project designed to simulate the automobile industry. The simulation provides a realistic portrayal of how management decisions affect market share and stock value within the automobile industry. At six weeks into the simulation, participants completed team variables, including collective humility, promotion focus, cohesion, and psychological safety. As predicted, collective humility was positively associated with collective promotion focus, which in turn was associated with higher team performance. These analyses controlled for team size, gender, and age, as well as stock price after the third round of competition and degree of competition (i.e., number of teams).
In the third study, participants (326 health service employees on 77 work teams) completed measures of leader humility and transformational leadership (i.e., a leadership style that involves motivating greater performance through inspirational values and vision) at Time 1. Employees rated collective humility and team collective promotion focus one month later (Time 2). In addition, leaders rated team performance at Time 2. As hypothesized, leader humility was associated with greater collective humility, which in turn predicted greater collective promotion focus and thereby increased team performance. These analyses again controlled for team size, gender, age, and transformational leadership (correlated .53 with leader humility). Taken together, results from these three studies provide promising initial evidence that humble behaviors by leaders can influence how individuals on a team relate to one another.
The final theory is admittedly more speculative than the others. The benefits of humility may be somewhat paradoxical and concealed. For example, research has demonstrated how narcissism is on the rise in the United States (e.g., Twenge & Campbell, 2009) and humility is consistently ranked low among other virtues in a variety of samples (Linley et al., 2007; Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004; Shimai, Otake, Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006). This hypothesis is designed to elucidate the contexts where humility ought to be especially helpful.
According to the social oil theory, humility acts as “social oil,” preventing relational wear‐and‐tear in the way that oil prevents the machinations of an engine from causing overheating. In his groundbreaking research, Collins (2001) found that humility and drive were two qualities of exceptional leaders who not only guided their companies into eras of high productivity, but whose companies also continued to thrive after they left their leadership post. The social oil theory is one way to understand these results. It is perhaps unsurprising that successful CEOs were driven – ambition is a character trait that is highly valued in potential leaders – but the same qualities that lead to high achievement can also cause wear‐and‐tear on relationships. For example, CEOs have higher rates of depression and divorce than the general population (e.g., Meers & Strober, 2009). We theorize that humility buffers the potential drawbacks of competitive traits by promoting an optimal balance of competition and cooperation. Providing initial evidence for this hypothesis in an organizational context, Owens, Wallace, and Waldman (2015) measured the degree to which subordinates (N = 876) perceived leaders within a health care organization as being humble (expressed humility). Narcissism and expressed humility interacted to predict perceptions of leader effectiveness, job engagement, and subjective and objective performance. Therefore, initial studies provide promising evidence for the social bonds hypothesis in leaders. It is important to explore this hypothesis across a range of relationships and contexts in which competitive traits may cause wear‐and‐tear on relationships and strain cooperation.
There are several exciting areas for future research focused on the importance of humility in organizational leadership. First, measurement issues persist. Researchers should continue to work to clarify optimal strategies for operationalizing humility in various contexts. Researchers need to advance theoretical arguments for consolidating definitions of humility and its various subdomains. Some humility measures that are focused on the organizational context may be poorly suited for comparing the influence of humility across a variety of relationships (e.g., work and family life). Most studies have examined humility as a trait, but we might also explore humility as a state. For example, researchers might explore particular appraisal styles associated with humility in the context of transition or stress, such as being more willing to examine existential assumptions and reconfigure cherished beliefs when challenged. In addition, researchers might explore specific behaviors that are indicative of low humility in high‐pressure situations. Initial work has found low self–other agreement for humility ratings at minimal levels of acquaintance, but perhaps observing how people respond to certain diagnostic situations for leaders could increase the accuracy of such brief judgments. Just as accurately assessing courage requires seeing how someone responds to danger, getting a good read on a leader’s humility likely requires seeing how he or she responds to interpersonal situations that are likely to lead to interpersonal conflict. Assessing humility would be especially helpful for subsequent applications regarding hiring decisions. For example, perhaps researchers could develop standardized interview questions that would help provide accurate judgments of a leader’s humility.
Furthermore, it is critical to evaluate measurement invariance of humility measures across different groups. It seems plausible that the construct of humility could vary by gender, race/ethnicity, and nationality identities, to name a few. Thus, a second area for future research involves the need to investigate how cultural identity might impact humility norms and the benefits of humility. A potential dark side of humility is that groups may apply different standards for evaluating humility to individuals. For instance, the social, cultural, and political experiences of women could lead to intrapersonal and interpersonal interpretations of humility that differ from those of men. For instance, if women are held to a higher standard when it comes to displaying humility, then men may receive greater social recognition and benefits for exhibiting equivalent (or even less) behavior as women. Research has only begun to explore how cultural norms influence perceptions of humility and its relationship with other variables (e.g., Hook et al., 2013; Kim & Lee, 2014).
A third area for future research involves exploring the robustness of humility as a predictor of various benefits. Given that many of the studies we reviewed may capitalize on mono‐method bias, a critical reader might question whether it is humility – or perhaps just general likeability or approval – that is associated with positive outcomes. Thin‐slice approaches (i.e., behavioral observation based on diagnostic situations) as described above would provide stronger evidence that humility behaviors in key situations (e.g., high potential for conflict) could predict subsequent outcomes. In addition, experimental designs that actually manipulate humble behavior (e.g., Owens & Hekman, 2015) will help address this concern.
A fourth area for future research involves exploring moderators of the link between humility and various outcomes. The social oil hypothesis is one example. Humility may be especially critical and related to positive outcomes in certain situations, such as highly competitive contexts. Having the ability to soften one’s interpersonal relationships might allow one to engage in a highly competitive way without the typical wear‐and‐tear that can accompany competition. Furthermore, it is important to explore contexts for which humility may be especially ill suited. For example, in qualitative interviews, executives identified high‐pressure situations as a potential weakness of humility (Owens & Heckman, 2012). Consequently, the pressured nature of a situation could moderate the link between humility and work‐related outcomes (e.g., team performance, collective promotion focus).
Finally, a fifth area of future research involves the need for intervention studies (Lavelock et al., 2014). Despite the fact that basic research focused on humility, both generally and in work contexts, is still in an early stage, we do not think it is premature to begin considering strategies to facilitate the practice and development of humble behaviors in certain contexts. Given the advantages of experimental designs, brief interventions can complement basic research on humility and help refine developing theory.
Given rapid changes in the economy in the United States and the world, as well as shifts in humility‐related traits (Twenge & Campbell, 2009), it has become increasingly important to understand how humility affects organizational leadership. The breadth of this virtue makes it a theme that cuts across a variety of prominent theories within organizational leadership, and recent advances in measurement now make it possible for rapid progress in our understanding of the importance of humility in relationships between leaders and their fellow leaders and teammates.