Expressed Humility in Organizations: Implications for Performance, Teams, and Leadership

Abstract

W e draw on eight different lab and field samples to delineate the effects of expressed humility on several important organizational outcomes, including performance, satisfaction, learning goal orientation, engagement, and turnover. We first review several literatures to define the construct of expressed humility, discuss its implications in social interactions, and distinguish expressed humility from related constructs. Using five different samples, Study 1 develops and validates an observer-report measure of expressed humility. Study 2 examines the strength of expressed humility predictions of individual performance and contextual performance (i.e., quality of team member contribution) relative to conscientiousness, global self-efficacy, and general mental ability. This study also reveals that with regard to individual performance, expressed humility may compensate for lower general mental ability. Study 3 reports insights from a large field sample that examines the relationship between leader-expressed humility and employee retention as mediated by job satisfaction and employee engagement as mediated by team learning orientation. We conclude with recommendations for future research.

Servant Leadership and the Effect of the Interaction Between Humility, Action, and Hierarchical Power on Follower Engagement

“…In an extensive study to validate their new measure of servant leadership, van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011) found supporting evidence for the potential impact of servant leadership on workforce engagement. In other empirical studies, aspects closely related to servant leadership like humility (Owens et al 2013) and empowerment (Tuckey et al 2012) were also found to be strongly related to engagement. We therefore suggest that both the action side and the humble side of the servant leader as advanced before will be positively related to engagement, which constitutes our first hypothesis.…”

“…Owens and Hekman (2012) propose that the leader's humility can be split essentially around ''three categories: (1) acknowledging personal limits, (2) spotlighting followers' strengths and contributions, and (3) modeling teachability.'' In a later study, these three categories have been captured in a quantitative instrument of leader expressed humility, which was shown to correlate with aspects like job engagement, job satisfaction, and team learning goal orientation (Owens et al 2013). One can observe that these three aspects suggested by Owens and Hekman (2012) coincide in many ways with the combined notions of humility and standing-back presented before (underpinning the humble service side).…”

Components of Ethical Leadership and Their Importance in Sustaining Organizations Over the Long Term

“…He possesses a quiet humility, speaks of the reality of life, has grown the company into a multibillion-dollar enterprise, and has never had cause to lay off any employees. Jeung and Hoon (2016) also indicate that humility in leadership leads to employee empowerment and efficacy, and is therefore an essential quality for successful leadership while Owens and Johnson (2013) argue that humility compensates for a lack of leadership mental ability in winning greater participation from employees in decision making. Working counter to humility leadership pride and stubbornness creates isolation and an inability to build consensus which are major leadership pitfalls (Delbecq, 1999).…”

Leadership Formation: Interpreting Experience

“…Humility, it is argued, supports opportunities for learning from the strengths and experiences of others in a general sense (Owens, Johnson & Mitchell, 2013). More importantly, it has also been argued to allow followers to have enough confidence to share the lessons, drawn from their interpretation of their own experiences, with leaders (Owens & Hekman, 2012).…”

“…This balance also has an important regulating effect on the causes and interests for which the leader's acquired abilities are used (Sparrowe, 2005). In particular, the appreciation of others' abilities and potential to contribute is reinforced by humility (Grondin, 2011;Owens & Hekman, 2012;Owens, Johnson & Mitchell, 2013;Risser, 1997). In a philosophical hermeneutic processes of dialogue, humility also helps to make room for others to participate in enacting leadership, which may then take more dispersed forms (Currie & Lockett, 2007;Raelin, 2003).…”