You will hardly find this attribute among ideal leadership traits, qualities or requirements in literature for leadership development. You will most likely never hear it as a virtue that people thought to be born leaders innately have. In fact, whether leaders are ‘born’ or ‘made,’ is still a matter of enduring debate. Whether they have done a management course or not, many people will without doubt, effortlessly make a list of ideal attributes that leaders are born with or leaders need to develop for them to be effective, efficient and essentially be ‘great’ leaders.
What then is this quality which is unique in a positive sense? Is it charisma, intelligence, excellent oratory skills? Well, there may never be a right or wrong answer to this one. There may be a thousand answers and justifiably so, different contexts and varied factors may be responsible for many different people to give as many different answers and reasons.
Learning being a life-long process and leadership being arguably a more practical phenomenon as opposed to a theoretical one, observing leaders (intentionally or otherwise), a number of interesting qualities they possess are picked. As a fast and strong emerging global movement of young leaders in Global Health Corps (GHC) with a mission to enhance health equity, observation learning is thus an integral component. If a particular behavioral trait is observed in anyone and is considered desirable by an individual or a considerable number of people, consciously or not, that behavioral trait is likely to be emulated by a sizable number of people.
This unique desirable trait which I have observed and I am very sure a number of other GHC community members and non-members is that of humility exhibited by the leadership of the GHC at all levels. A simple gesture of exemplary behavior by a leader to his/her subordinates may speak volumes of the commitment and conviction that may be much more clearer than the most elaborate lecture on what he/she may want to communicate about the vision or mission to be achieved. A simple picking of a shovel by a leader involved in community work or a leader interacting with his/her subordinates in a hike or bowling game speaks louder than the best lecture on collaboration or inspiration. I would therefore consider the active involvement of the GHC leadership (CEO, V/presidents, managers, etc) in most of the activities with the GHC fellows during the training at Yale as this ideal unique quality – HUMILITY, which was portrayed as an exemplary behavior of an ideal leader. One of the many lessons I learnt is that a leader never alienates himself/herself from the followers but is approachable and most importantly, leads by example.
Other than being seen as a weakness, humility as an attribute that an individual possesses, of course integrating with other desirable attributes, it may be a cardinal strength that an individual may need to have that needs no coercion. Does the emphasis on humility as a leadership trait seem 100 percent counter-intuitive when you picture today’s stereotypical CEO? Maybe yes. But according to various workplace gurus (including Jim Collins and the research team behind the landmark business book ‘Good to Great,’ as well as recent studies published in the Academy of Management Journal and Organization Science), it’s true that ‘humility’ is critically an important leadership trait. It is clearly stated that leaders who are seem to be truly servant-hearted; able to put others and the organization first; and willing to listen with humility to other points of view are the ones that people will follow. This, of course, does not imply that humility is synonymous with being submissive, weak or being inconsiderate of oneself, NO. I am implying that there is need for an individual to be considerate of others while being as assertive and as vigilant with one’s goals as well as those that are collectively pursued. Whether done intentionally or not, an individual who is not humble or acts braggadocious is detested by many people and this surely alienates him/her from others including his/her followers. Thus, the following for this kind of leader is more of coercion and as hypothetically expected, this following is never sustainable. This leader is thus undoubtedly, like a cup which is full and everybody knows well not to pour water in a cup which is already full.
A leader who has got good self awareness is also generally well respected and in most cases has high self-esteem and hence is like a cup that has room for water to be poured into it and this literally implies is approachable to people. People may thus, easily advise this kind of leader and the following is to a larger extent intrinsic by the followers and hence sustainable.
The collaborative model that is at the centre of the GHC fellowship attests to this fact that not one person has all the knowledge in the world, strength or zeal to change the world. Everyone in the community is uniquely talented and the realization that varied expertise come from various professional and geographical backgrounds may be the beginning of that humility. The subsequent anticipated success therefore of the movement will be as result of concerted augmented efforts of various players.