Hubris occurs when a person exhibits extreme pride or dangerous over-confidence. It often signals a loss of contact with reality. For business leaders, hubris represents the gross overestimation of one’s own professional competence, accomplishments and capabilities. The impact on the organization is severe. Subordinates are often mistreated and company performance can suffer.
In a previous article for the Forbes leadership channel, I wrote about the research documenting the high costs of workplace incivility in terms of dragging down the organization’s performance and poisoning its culture. Leaders tainted by hubris give life to toxic environments, workplaces where incivility, and downright hostility often flourish.
However, the reverse can also true. Leaders who choose humility, and who model humbleness in their actions, create the opposite kind of environment. This environment is grounded in respect, tolerance, and outcomes that are mutually beneficial for the firm and for the individual. Leaders who are good role models tend to radiate positivity, and instead of spawning a downward spiral, they create an upward spiral that elevates pro-social employee behaviors.
Given the power of ethical leaders, why is it, then, that these leaders seem to be in short supply? Part of it is how our brains are wired. Due to evolution, humans have a negativity bias in which we tend to pay attention to and remember negative information more readily than positive information.
Positive behavior can also capture our attention, if for no other reason that it stands out from workplace norms. Actions by ethical leaders are most powerful in negative or neutral contexts, which shape what employees pay attention to and model. The actions also provide a model for how we are expected to act and interact with others. Leaders, therefore, can have a significant impact depending on whether their behaviors provide positive or negative cues on what others should value and, in turn, emulate. Thus, hubris versus humility is a critical choice for every leader in every situation.
Several research studies by Christine Porath and her colleagues show that positive behaviors by leaders are correlated with pro-social employee outcomes. Behaviors that model workplace civility have a greater impact than any of the traditional approaches associated with increased employee satisfaction. This includes providing meaningful employee feedback, effectively communicating a vision, providing developmental opportunities and even offering pay raises and bonuses for top-performing employees. Leaders who model civility have workplaces with the highest levels of employee engagement, satisfaction and retention, according to Porath’s work. Thus, it is not just a matter of stopping workplace incivility; it is equally important for leaders to actively shape positive behaviors that reinforce and normalize positive workplace civility.
Another line of research, positive organizational scholarship (POS), focuses on the ways in which leaders can enhance individual and organizational outcomes by leading with positive prosocial behaviors and interactions as opposed to negative, destructive actions. Scholars in this area focus on personal strength, resiliency, restoration and forms of inclusive leadership that help to maximize human potential.
As described by Kim Cameron, one of the originators of POS, leadership practices should create a “culture of virtuous action” within organizations. While a wide variety of leadership behaviors are involved in shaping this type of culture, there are four primary actions undertaken by leaders that emerge. I label it as the CARE Model of Effective Leadership, with the acronym standing for communication, authenticity, respect and ethics.
- Communication styles of effective leaders may differ in some respects but all engage in positive, productive and purposeful interpersonal interactions. Poor or divisive communication styles lead to high workplace conflict and erode trust in leadership. A leader’s style of communication should also include gratitude that values people, their talents and their contributions.
- Authenticity involves what Laura Morgan-Roberts calls “bringing your whole self to work” as a critical step in the process of becoming extraordinary. Her work suggests that authenticity has become one of the highest virtues for effective leadership. A leader’s authenticity gives permission for employees to present all aspects of their identities at work in a safe environment.
- Respect means treating others in an ethical and responsible manner. Effective leaders set standards for behavior and serve as role models based on their actions and not their words alone. Instances of unfair treatment, unconscious bias, unwarranted favoritism, conflicts of interest and acts of injustice violate the trust necessary for high levels of employee engagement and a positive workplace culture.
- Ethics must go beyond a written code and be modeled in the everyday behavior of the organization. This has value to the organization beyond the avoidance of costly litigation or a negative reputation. When ethical rules or the norms of justice and fairness are broken by a leader, employees often become morally disengaged. That can cause unethical behavior to spread throughout the organization. Ethical roles models, in contrast, help to shape a workplace culture where being fair and trustworthy is contagious.
Humility over hubris is a clear choice for leaders who understand that there is substantial evidence for the impact of positive role modeling for producing effective organizational outcomes. Effective leaders should consistently strive to maintain the principles of the CARE Model. This approach creates a type of affirmative bias that focuses on the abundance of people’s strengths rather than on their weaknesses, and proactively leverages opportunities rather than avoiding or assigning blame for threats or failures.
Humility over hubris also recognizes that organizational effectiveness is not solely based on the leader; it is focused, too, on the development, health and well-being of those being led. Every choice and decision by a leader should involve being a positive role model of the four key components within the CARE Model.
The choice for a leader is clear. Choose humility.
