Leading with Humility

Nielsen, Rasmus Gaardskær; Marrone, Jennifer A.; Ferraro, Holly Slay

doi:10.4324/9780203139530

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…Servant leaders (Greenleaf 1977) convert their followers into leaders, prioritize the needs of their followers, and are particularly concerned about followers with less power or greater need for help (Bass and Bass 2008). However, humble leaders do not necessarily place the needs of others ahead of themselves (Nielsen et al 2010(Nielsen et al , 2014. Such leaders are supportive of followers, but are 'more likely to adopt a stance of egalitarianism rather than superiority or servility in their communications with others' (Morris et al 2005(Morris et al , p. 1341.…”

Section: What Is Humility?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Humility: Our Current Understanding of the Construct and its Role in Organizations

Nielsen¹,

Marrone

2018

Int J Management Reviews

Self Cite

101

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Since 2000, researchers and practitioners have shown increased interest in humility. This construct has been studied in disciplines ranging from organizational behaviour to positive psychology, culminating in a wealth of information that can now be analysed and reviewed through the lens of humility in organizations. This review begins by reflecting on existing conceptualizations of humility and presenting a summary of findings that reflects a greater consensus in definitional work than some researchers may realize. It then considers the progress that has been made in measuring humility by specifying key measurement strategies. It next synthesizes existing empirical findings on humility to illuminate the uniqueness of the construct. It also shows that researchers have focused on studying dependent variables that exist at multiple organizational levels and that largely comprise pro-social and relational variables, emotional well-being, and learning and performance outcomes. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research.

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Section: What Is Humility?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Humility: Our Current Understanding of the Construct and its Role in Organizations

Nielsen¹,

Marrone

2018

Int J Management Reviews

Self Cite

101

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“…In this study, drawing on the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989(Hobfoll, , 2001 and crossover of resources model (Hobfoll et al, 2018), we argue that humble leaders can actually transmit energy as resources from resource caravans to subordinates via a crossover process, "a dyadic interindividual transmission of psychological states and experiences" (Hobfoll et al, 2018, p. 108) and thus sustain subordinates' proactive behavior. Specifically, we proposed that leader humility, characterized by its relational orientation and serves as a relationship builder (Nielsen et al, 2013), can boost subordinates' relational energy (i.e., a heightened level of psychological resourcefulness and fulfillment generated from interpersonal interactions) Wang et al, 2018), which in turn, sustains employees' behavior for bringing about changes (Parker et al, 2010). To examine our hypotheses, we focus on subordinates' constructive voice, a type of proactive behavior involving employee's communication of ideas, suggestions, and concerns about work-related issues aimed at change and improvement (Morrison, 2011(Morrison, , 2014, for several reasons.…”

Section: Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Why and when leader humility promotes constructive voice: a crossover of energy perspective

Chen

et al. 2019

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to build a moderate mediation model to delineate the effects of leader humility on employee constructive voice behavior based on conservation of resources theory and crossover of resources model. Specifically, when a leader behaves with humility, the followers will be more likely to feel they receive psychological resources from their interactions with the leader (i.e. relational energy), and thus engage in more constructive voice behavior. In addition, this energizing effect only occurs when the leader is perceived as having higher apparent sincerity by their subordinates. Design/methodology/approach The research hypotheses of this study were empirically tested using multi-timepoint and multi-source (i.e. supervisors and subordinates) survey data in China. Study 1, based on data from 449 subordinates and 88 immediate supervisors, was conducted to test the proposed mediation effect. Study 2, based on data from 185 subordinates and 50 immediate supervisors, was conducted to replicate the findings of Study 1 and test the integrated model. Findings The results of Study 1 support the proposed mediation effect that leader humility positively predicts followers’ constructive voice behavior via boosting followers’ relational energy. The results of Study 2 replicate the findings of Study 1 and further indicate that leader humility is only positively related to perceived relational energy when a leader is perceived as having higher apparent sincerity by their subordinates. Practical implications This paper provides detailed instructions for business practitioners. First, given that employee constructive voice behavior is related to employee relational energy and is beneficial to organizations, leaders are encouraged to behave with humility when interacting with their subordinates. Second, from the perspective of human resource management, well-designed training programs can be used to help leaders to develop leader humility. Third, the findings of this paper call attention to a potential risk for humble leaders. Organizations should educate leaders on the potential negative consequences of false humility and encourage leader humility that will appear in leaders’ sincerity. Originality/value Overall, drawing on conservation of resources theory and crossover of resources model, this paper reveals that boosting relational energy is a mechanism via which humble leaders can shape employees’ voice behavior. Second, by examining the moderation effect of apparent sincerity of leaders from followers’ perspective, this paper suggests an actor–recipient perspective to identify the boundaries of the energizing mechanism. Third, the findings of this paper add to the knowledge on voice research by highlighting an additional source of energy for employee constructive voice behavior.

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“…Moreover, humble leaders also legitimize uncertainty and appreciate team members’ effort in speaking up about new ideas and changes. This makes the team members feel safe enough about sharing personally meaningful and even risky information ( Nielsen et al, 2013 ; Chiu et al, 2016 ). Third, by being open to new ideas and suggestions and actively seeking feedback to improve work procedures or products ( Owens et al, 2013 ), humble leaders can shape a shared belief that their work environment is safe enough to be able to speak up about new ideas and be efficient at implementing good suggestions.…”

Section: Theory and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Distinct from shared leadership, leader humility is a vertical style which conveys social signals of admitting personal limitations, publicly praising followers, and displaying a high willingness to learn from others ( Owens and Hekman, 2012 ). Although some theorists ( Owens and Hekman, 2012 ; Nielsen et al, 2013 ) have called for research to investigate the relationship between leader humility and team innovation, as far as we know, no study has empirically explored this relationship. Thus, it is necessary to investigate the effect of leader humility on team innovation to reach a better understanding about leadership–team innovation relationship.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leader Humility and Team Innovation: Investigating the Substituting Role of Task Interdependence and the Mediating Role of Team Voice Climate

2017

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Leadership has been found to be linked with team innovation. Based on social information processing theory and substitutes for leadership theory, this paper examines the influence of leader humility on team innovation. Results from 90 teams showed that leader humility will enhance team innovation by fostering team voice climate. Further, task interdependence substitutes the effect of leader humility on team innovation through an indirect way via team voice climate. This study discussed the theoretical and practical implementations of these observations.

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Leading with Humility

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Humility: Our Current Understanding of the Construct and its Role in Organizations

Humility: Our Current Understanding of the Construct and its Role in Organizations

Why and when leader humility promotes constructive voice: a crossover of energy perspective

Leader Humility and Team Innovation: Investigating the Substituting Role of Task Interdependence and the Mediating Role of Team Voice Climate

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