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Exploring the Relevance and Implications of Humility in Organizations

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In this chapter, we explore the meaning and relevance of humility within the context of organizations. After briefly reviewing the history of the construct of humility and synthesizing past definitions of humility, we discuss extant research exploring the impact of humility on individual performance, prosocial behavior, team processes, and leadership. We conclude by discussing the potential boundary conditions for the usefulness of humility in organizations and offering ideas for future research.

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... intained by leaders and entertainers (Exline & Geyer, 2004). Participants in their study were decisive that a characteristic such as confidence, more than humility, was a strength among leaders. Others have suggested that role dynamics, specifically roles which denote leadership and expertise, may raise expectations of competence and assertiveness (B. Owens et al., 2012). Furthermore, they conceptualize that individuals in positions of leadership or power may be viewed as weak or pandering, when expressing too much humility by those who value or expect more conviction and self-assuredness (B. Owens et al., 2012). Such role relations and power dynamics can exist in the therapist-client dyad, and these sy ...
... Furthermore, they conceptualize that individuals in positions of leadership or power may be viewed as weak or pandering, when expressing too much humility by those who value or expect more conviction and self-assuredness (B. Owens et al., 2012). Such role relations and power dynamics can exist in the therapist-client dyad, and these system-specific dynamics may produce unique expectations within the context of jails where power differentials are arguably more drastic and apparent than in most clinical settings. ...
... ees may interpret acts of humility in a different manner (e.g., inexperience). That is, the clients may want more confidence and expertness from their therapist, and they might interpret a stance of humility as a sign of uncertainty or lack of expertise. Indeed, as humility is achieved by virtue of reducing expressions of superiority and expertise (B. Owens et al., 2012) its expression by therapist-trainees may be misconstrued by clients as incompetence. Additionally, the working alliance might be of more central importance (e.g., doing the work in therapy), while a humble stance might detract from the confidence in the therapist to actualize that work. This perception could have been more pronounced gi ...
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Jails and prisons commonly offer mental health treatments as many people experiencing incarceration suffer from significant psychological distress and substance use problems. One modality through which individuals who are incarcerated receive care is psychotherapy; however, process and outcome data in this population are limited. More specifically, little is known about how culture and identity impact the development therapeutic relationship in this context. The multicultural orientation framework, which includes three pillars (cultural humility, cultural opportunities, and cultural comfort), aims to operationalize cultural processes in psychotherapy (J. Owen, 2013). We examined the relationship between therapy outcomes and client ratings of their therapist’s cultural humility (positive and negative), cultural opportunities, and the working alliance in two jails. Ninety-four clients engaging in routine psychotherapy rated their experience of the therapy process during their third session. Interestingly, we did not find significant associations between therapy outcomes (i.e., psychological distress and relational distress) and negative cultural humility or cultural opportunities. We did find a significant positive association between the working alliance and therapy outcomes. Notably, therapy outcomes were negatively associated with positive cultural humility, suggesting that clients who rated their therapist higher on positive cultural humility had worse therapy outcomes. Therefore, there may be important setting specific factors that contribute to the importance of orienting to culture in psychotherapy.
... Humility, across cultures, has been regarded as a universal virtue linked to both personal and organizational competitive advantage (Owens et al., 2011;Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004). It has been defined as "the capacity or willingness to evaluate oneself without positive or negative exaggeration, leading to a more accurate, non-defensive, objective self-view" (Owens et al., 2011, p 7). ...
... Importantly, this trait is linked to improved team dynamics, creativity and reduced employee turnover intention (Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004). Humility predicts individual performance beyond common predictors, such as conscientiousness, general mental ability and generalized self-efficacy (Owens et al., 2011). Second, as humility is a trainable quality (Peng et al., 2022), new hires demonstrating it could acquire better information and social support from stakeholders in a nonthreatening manner, helping them deliver better performance (Seibert et al., 2001). ...
... Employees with strong IPU demonstrate patience and understanding at the workplace and therefore express positive emotions, such as gratitude, empathy, sympathy, love and compassion, and a higher focus on acknowledging others' strengths. Briefly, they can acquire rich social capital, helping them in the process to outperform their counterparts (Owens et al., 2011). Pursuant to this discussion, we argue that employees with high IPU do tend to be humble in interacting with others, leading to better individual performances (Seibert et al., 2001). ...
Chapter
High performance of new hires is of imminent interest to organizations. Therefore, understanding antecedents that enhance job performance among new hires would be of interest to research and practice. However, there are contradictory and limited studies focusing on relevant traits of new hires that improve on-job performance. Drawing on Human Capital Theory, we argue that job applicants demonstrating humility, accompanied by interpersonal understanding, self-confidence, and flexibility deliver higher on-job performance. We find that humility is a significant predictor of job performance through a longitudinal field survey spanning 16 months, using multisource data of 205 real job applicants and their performance ratings, analyzed using PLS-SEM: since it allows the researchers to examine the relationships between multiple latent variables (i.e., humility, interpersonal understanding, self-confidence, and flexibility) and a single observed variable (i.e., new hire performance) in a single model. Further, humility wholly mediates the effect of interpersonal understanding, self-confidence, and flexibility on new hire performance.
... Humility, across cultures, has been regarded as a universal virtue linked to both personal and organizational competitive advantage (Owens et al., 2011;Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004). It has been defined as "the capacity or willingness to evaluate oneself without positive or negative exaggeration, leading to a more accurate, non-defensive, objective self-view" (Owens et al., 2011, p 7). ...
... Importantly, this trait is linked to improved team dynamics, creativity and reduced employee turnover intention (Vera and Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004). Humility predicts individual performance beyond common predictors, such as conscientiousness, general mental ability and generalized self-efficacy (Owens et al., 2011). Second, as humility is a trainable quality (Peng et al., 2022), new hires demonstrating it could acquire better information and social support from stakeholders in a nonthreatening manner, helping them deliver better performance (Seibert et al., 2001). ...
... Employees with strong IPU demonstrate patience and understanding at the workplace and therefore express positive emotions, such as gratitude, empathy, sympathy, love and compassion, and a higher focus on acknowledging others' strengths. Briefly, they can acquire rich social capital, helping them in the process to outperform their counterparts (Owens et al., 2011). Pursuant to this discussion, we argue that employees with high IPU do tend to be humble in interacting with others, leading to better individual performances (Seibert et al., 2001). ...
Article
Purpose: High performance of new hires is of imminent interest to organizations in the hospitality sector. Yet, limited studies have focused on the relevant traits of new hires that improve on-job performance. This study aims to identify and understand a few critical traits that predict high performance across multilevel roles within the hospitality sector. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on the human capital theory, through a time-lagged field study spanning 16 months, this study used multisource data for 540 active job opportunities and 205 new hires within the hospitality industry. This study used partial least squares-based structural equation modeling and analyzed the various traits that predict high on-job performance. Findings: This study finds that humility is a significant predictor of job performance and wholly mediates the effect of interpersonal understanding, self-confidence and flexibility on new hires’ performance. Originality/value: This study enhances talent management research for the hospitality sector by determining the critical traits of new hires that can predict superior on-job performance.
... Humility is seen as a moral value in individuals (Murray, 2001), as well as an ethical value (Jennings et al., 2005). Similarly, the study by Owens et al. (2011) presents humility as a virtue that pays attention to human limits, giving rise to behaviors that allow dealing productively, adaptively and constructively with these scenarios, and highlights the triad of virtuousness of humble behavior: (i) Manifested Willingness to See the Self Accurately, (ii) Appreciation of Others' Strengths and Contributions, and (iii) Teachability: openness to learning, to seeking advice, feedback, and new ideas from others (Owens et al., 2013). ...
... The importance of humility in management has been supported by recent studies (Argandona, 2015;Cuenca et al., 2022;Frostenson, 2016). Many empirical studies (Ali et al., 2020;Davis et al., 2017;Ou et al., 2014;Owens et al., 2011;Owens & Hekman, 2016;Rego et al., 2019) provide support for considering humility as a positive and effective quality for individuals, teams and organizations (Nielsen et al., 2010). In these studies, the authors analyze the role of humble leadership in engagement and learning (Nielsen & Marrone, 2018;Owens et al., 2011), as well as in E X H I B I T 1 Practices of a humble culture innovation (Owens & Hekman, 2012;Sun et al., 2021), and in resilience (Zhu et al., 2019). ...
... Many empirical studies (Ali et al., 2020;Davis et al., 2017;Ou et al., 2014;Owens et al., 2011;Owens & Hekman, 2016;Rego et al., 2019) provide support for considering humility as a positive and effective quality for individuals, teams and organizations (Nielsen et al., 2010). In these studies, the authors analyze the role of humble leadership in engagement and learning (Nielsen & Marrone, 2018;Owens et al., 2011), as well as in E X H I B I T 1 Practices of a humble culture innovation (Owens & Hekman, 2012;Sun et al., 2021), and in resilience (Zhu et al., 2019). They also assess its effect on the well-being of followers (Zhong et al., 2019), on employees' proactive behavior (Chen, Liang et al., 2021), on innovation and creativity (Chen, Liu et al., 2021;Hu et al., 2018;Mallén et al., 2020;Seckler et al., 2021;Wang et al., 2017Wang et al., , 2020. ...
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In order to analyze the role of humility in organizational culture, in this work, companies that formally declared humility as a value on their home pages were chosen, as to understand the internalization of this value in their practices and behaviors. The research adopted a descriptive‐analytical design with a qualitative approach, and in addition to secondary data referring to the organizational profile, fourteen semi‐structured interviews were analyzed with the decision‐making elite of the seven chosen organizations, based on theoretical‐deductive categories of the construct identified in the organizational literature. The study identified that the value of humility is effectively present in behaviors and practices of these organizations, which develop a culture of humility in their daily lives. The main results indicate that the internalized value of humility is associated with (i) shared behaviors; (ii) clear self‐assessment of strengths and weaknesses; (iii) culture of innovation; (iv) awareness of their own limitations; (v) support for third‐party contributions and feedback practices (vi) employee learning; (vii) culture of praise. The results reinforced the main categories and constructs for a Humble Organizational Culture (HOC) Model, opening opportunities for future research that explore the elaboration of cultural maturity diagnoses and humility measurement instruments in the organizational field.
... First, acknowledging their own weaknesses (i.e., willingness to view one's self accurately) allows leaders to have a greater openness to new information and demonstrates an appreciation toward those who are highlighting those weaknesses, even if they are in conflict with the leader's own beliefs (Owens & Hekman, 2016). Thus, a willingness to see one's self accurately is one of the dimensions of leader humility, which demonstrates the nature of self-effacing (Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2011). Second, humility fosters a positive work environment through openly recognizing and appreciating the strengths and contributions of others (i.e., others-affirming) without feeling threatened by them (Owens et al., 2011). ...
... Thus, a willingness to see one's self accurately is one of the dimensions of leader humility, which demonstrates the nature of self-effacing (Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2011). Second, humility fosters a positive work environment through openly recognizing and appreciating the strengths and contributions of others (i.e., others-affirming) without feeling threatened by them (Owens et al., 2011). Finally, teachability or the openness of leaders to learn from others (i.e., mutual-learning) positively influences the workplace as it exhibits a positive leader-follower relationship. ...
... Leader humility alone constitutes a "good" form of leadership and has a generally beneficial effect on followers and the organization (Owens et al., 2011). However, it may have an unfavorable effect when a humble leader gains surplus moral credits. ...
Article
Prior research on the effects of leader humility implies that the more humility the leader exhibits, the greater the positive effect on recipients (e.g., followers and teams). However, little or no attention has so far been paid to the effects on the actors (e.g., leaders), who espouse humble behavior. In response to recent calls to theorize and examine how humility impacts these actors, this research draws on moral licensing theory, adopting an actor-centric approach to examine the mechanisms through which leader humility can lead to unethical behavior, such as unethical behavior for an organization (pseudobeneficial) and unethical behavior toward the organization (detrimental). Ultimately, we propose leader relational accountability as a moderator to mitigate the moral licensing effect of humble leaders. Results from a survey study provide support for the proposed hypotheses.
... Leader humility (i.e., conveying that one maintains a grounded perspective of oneself in relation to others; Owens et al., 2012) operates as a self-regulatory mechanism: it not only mitigates possible negative outcomes of relational transparency, but also facilitates its potentially positive outcomes by helping the transparent leader to show respect for team members (Rogers & Ashforth, 2017), and thus to convey the message that he/she is receptive to relational transparency toward him/her. If the leader is not humble, the potential negative consequences of relational transparency make team members feel disrespected by the leader, and believe that the leader is not receptive to their relational transparency. ...
... Humility involves maintaining a grounded perspective of oneself in relation to others (Owens et al., 2012). Humility in leaders helps them to recognize areas of strength and weakness in both themselves and others, while buffering them from developing feelings of superiority or inferiority. ...
... Our study thus contributes to the literature on the antecedents of respect in organizations, from the receiver's perspective (Rogers & Ashforth, 2017). We also provide an additional contribution to the literature about humility in leaders (Nielsen & Marrone, 2018;Owens et al., 2012Owens et al., , 2013. Specifically, we suggest that humility may facilitate a "dialogical pedagogy" in authentic leadership development (Berkovich, 2014). ...
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Using a sample of 114 leaders (described by 516 team members), we show empirically that leader relational transparency and leader receptiveness is indirectly related to the relational transparency of team members (through leader respect), and is conditional on leader humility. When a transparent leader expresses humility, they convey respect to team members and are perceived as more receptive to the relational transparency of employees. The indirect association between leader relational transparency and leader receptiveness to the relational transparency of team members is negative, however, when the leader is not perceived as humble. Our paper contributes to discussion about the limits of relational transparency as an indicator of authentic leadership, from a leader-centric perspective. We suggest that what is often described as relational transparency is no more than unidirectional transparency – from leaders to followers. We conclude that transparency (and authenticity) in leaders is relational only when it is bidirectional.
... Previous research has presented mixed findings regarding the relationship between expressed humility and well-being, indicating the presence of potential moderators. One notable challenge for individuals with humility is that they may be perceived as less powerful and competent (Owens et al., 2011;Zapata & Hayes-Jones, 2019), making it more likely for them to be underestimated by those around them. However, prior studies have overlooked the role of perceived underestimation in influencing the effectiveness of employee humility. ...
... The decision to have direct leaders assess employee humility is grounded in several reasons. Other-report humility has been found to be more reliable, exhibiting internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and has higher nomological validity, demonstrating expected associations with other theoretically related constructs (Owens et al., 2011). In the organizational context, immediate leaders and coworkers are individuals who possess a deep understanding of employees. ...
Article
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Previous research has found inconsistent relationship between general humility and individual well-being. Moreover, there is very limited exploration of its underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions. Drawing from ego-depletion theory and self-efficacy literature, we propose an integrated model that examines the concurrent effects of employee humility on well-being. Taking a multi-faceted perspective of well-being, we suggest that employee humility is associated with both positive and negative aspects of well-being through two routes: increased self-efficacy and ego depletion. In line with internal identity asymmetry theory, we further propose that perceived leader underestimation serves as a critical boundary condition that influences these relationships. To test our hypotheses, we utilized time-lagged and supervisor-subordinate matched data and conducted a moderated-mediation analysis. Our results partially supported the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, employee humility was found to be associated with increased well-being in terms of personal growth and job satisfaction through enhanced self-efficacy and increased ego depletion. However, it was also linked to decreased well-being in terms of sleep deprivation through heightened ego depletion. Moreover, while perceived leader underestimation did not moderate the positive relationship between employee humility and ego depletion, it did play a moderating role in the positive association between employee humility and self-efficacy. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the positive and negative aspects of employee humility in relation to individuals’ well-being.
... Many empirical studies (e.g., Davis et al., 2017;Ou et al., 2014;Owens & Hekman, 2012Rego et al., 2019;Rowatt et al., 2006) provide support for considering humility as a positive and effective quality for individuals, teams, and organizations (Nielsen et al., 2010). In these works, the authors analyze the role of humble leadership in engagement and learning (Nielsen & Marrone, 2018;Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2011), as well as in motivation (Owens & Hekman, 2012), and in resilience (Zhu, Zhang, & Shen, 2019). They also assess its effect on responsiveness (Prayag, 2018), on the well-being of followers (Zhong, Zhang, Li, & Zhang, 2019), and on innovation and creativity (Chen, Liu, Wang, & Hu, 2021;Hu, Jiang, Erogan, & Bauer, 2018;Mallén, Domínguez-Escrig, Lapiedra, & Chiva, 2020;Wang, Li, & Yin, 2020). ...
... Objetive of work Morris, Brotheridge, and Urbanski (2005) Explore the potential nexus between humility and leadership. Owens, Rowatt, and Wilkins (2011) Discuss the historical roots, meaning and antecedents of humility; the growing relevance of humility in organizations. Chiu, Huang, and Hung (2012) Provide a definition of humility that allows you to explore the differences between Western and Chinese views of humility. ...
Article
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Abstract Humility is a characteristic little studied in the organizational environment. The interest in research on humility started to gain some representativeness this century. However, literature reviews on humility in management are rare, making it necessary to systematize the relevant knowledge in this field. This research highlights the intellectual structure of the domain, the current studies, and research opportunities associated with humility in organizations. A bibliometric study was carried out from 2000 to 2020, and activity and relationship indicators, such as co-citations and bibliographic coupling, were analyzed. Results show three major thematic lines that make up the intellectual structure of the field: (i) concepts, antecedents, and organizational attributes, (i) methods and scales, and (iii) behavioral issues. This research is organized on four major fronts: (i) expressed humility, (ii) humility and CEOs, (iii) humility and teams, and (iv) humility and organizational behavior. Finally, an agenda for future research is presented, emphasizing the analysis of how expressed humility and humble behavior can be taught and internalized in the organizational culture.
... Building on the socialized charismatic leadership perspective. Another study by Owens et al. (2011) offer a theoretical exploration of humility in organizations, discussing its relevance and implications. Their conceptual analysis highlights the potential impact of HL on employee attitudes and behaviors, providing a foundation for further empirical investigations. ...
Article
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Drawing on the job demand-resource (JD-R) model and self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines the relationship between humble leadership and employees’ creative performance, taking into account the sequential mediating role of intrinsic motivation and work engagement. The sequential mediation model was tested using two-wave questionnaire data collected from employees and their supervisors (n = 350) in the telecommunication sector of Pakistan. Data were processed and examined using SPSS and AMOS. The results revealed significant positive relationships among all variables. Further, it was found that intrinsic motivation and work engagement sequentially but partially mediated the positive relationship between humble leadership and creative performance. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed at the end.
... Character traits such as humility, have received more attention in the psychological literature since the introduction of positive psychology in the early 2000s (Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2011). The field of positive psychology expanded on Tangney's (2000) definition of humility by describing it as an inclination to assess oneself honestly and not seek acclaim for one's achievements. ...
Chapter
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The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between the perception of humble leadership and psychological well-being and innovative work behavior. A total of 279 employees participated in the study. The data collected for the research was analyzed using the statistical programs SPSS and AMOS. The results of the analysis indicated that there exists a statistically significant and positive relationship between humble leadership, psychological well-being, and innovative work behavior. It was also found that psychological well-being has a positive and significant impact on innovative work behaviors. The mediating function of psychological well-being was found to be significant.
... Character traits such as humility, have received more attention in the psychological literature since the introduction of positive psychology in the early 2000s (Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2011). The field of positive psychology expanded on Tangney's (2000) definition of humility by describing it as an inclination to assess oneself honestly and not seek acclaim for one's achievements. ...
... These topics include humble leadership, leader humility, leadership, and servant leadership. Humility and leadership are examined related to the benefits provided by humble leadership to employees, such as generating trust, loyalty, learning, employee empowerment, and a supportive work context, that humble leadership has an impact on organizational outcomes such as employee retention and financial performance (Brunzel &;Ebsen, 2022;Nielsen & Marrone, 2018;Owens et al., 2011;Wang et al., 2021). Owens et al. (2013) Began introducing the term leader humility to answer the challenges researchers related to humility with leadership in the context of organizations. ...
Article
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Humility makes people to have attachments and increases empathy. People with humility would be open and consider the opinions and beliefs of others. This study aims to identify and analyze the research trend of humility in one decade. This study used literature review with a bibliometric approach. SCOPUS was used as the database for this study and used humility as the main keyword. The analyses used VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel. The bibliometric analysis included document type, authorship, institution, subject area, growth trend, and future research directions. The 6 clusters explained that humility is discussed in various fields such as individual characteristics, personality, culture, religiosity and spirituality, and leadership or organization. For future research, it is expected that researchers can discuss humility related to the topics mentioned in the discussion section.
... Humble leaders do so by admitting they do not know everything, modeling the ability to learn, and recognizing the skills, knowledge, and contributions (Owens & Hekman, 2012). Besides, Owens et al. (2010) propose that humility can mitigate conflicts and organizational problems generated by the competitive environment; it can also foster adaptation through transferring decisions to specialists at the expense of hierarchical emphasis. Such transfer of power also evokes the notion of psychological empowerment. ...
... Muitos estudos empíricos (i.e., Davis et al., 2017;Ou et al., 2014;Owens & Hekman, 2012Rego et al., 2019;Rowatt et al., 2006) fornecem suporte para se considerar a humildade como uma qualidade positiva e eficaz para os indivíduos, equipes e organizações (Nielsen et al., 2010). Nestes trabalhos os autores analisam o papel de uma liderança humilde no engajamento e na aprendizagem (Nielsen & Marrone, 2018;Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2011), assim como na motivação (Owens & Hekman, 2012), e na resiliência (Zhu, Zhang, & Shen, 2019). Também avaliam o seu efeito na capacidade de resposta (Prayag, 2018), no bem-estar dos seguidores (Zhong, Zhang, Li, & Zhang, 2019), na inovação e na criatividade (Chen, Liu, Wang, & Hu, 2021;Hu, Jiang, Erogan, & Bauer, 2018;Mallén, Domínguez-Escrig, Lapiedra, & Chiva, 2020;Wang, Li, & Yin, 2020). ...
Article
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Resumo A humildade é uma qualidade pouco estudada no ambiente organizacional. O interesse pelas pesquisas acerca da humildade passou a ganhar alguma representatividade a partir deste século. Contudo, as revisões de literatura sobre a humildade na gestão são raras, tornando-se oportuna a sistematização do conhecimento relevante deste campo. Evidenciar a estrutura intelectual do domínio, as pesquisas atuais e as oportunidades de investigação associadas à humildade nas organizações é o objetivo desta pesquisa. Para tanto, foi realizado um estudo bibliométrico no período 2000-2020, e analisados indicadores de atividade e relacionais - cocitações e acoplamento bibliográfico. Os resultados mostram três grandes linhas temáticas que compõem a estrutura intelectual do campo: (i) conceitos, antecedentes e atributos organizacionais., (ii) métodos e escalas, e (iii) questões comportamentais. As pesquisas atuais estão organizadas em quatro grandes frentes: (i) humildade expressa, (ii) humildade e q, (iii) humildade e equipes, e (iv) humildade e comportamento organizacional. Ao final é apresentada uma agenda de pesquisa futura, com destaque para a análise de como a humildade expressa e os comportamentos humildes podem ser ensinados e internalizados na cultura organizacional.
... This is consistent with approaches of shared leadership, which aim to focus on the leadership and coaching of colleagues. The listed strategies also relate to research results on the construct of humility: Leadership humility, based on three dimensions of humility, can affect team performance by promoting constructive interpersonal processes (Owens and Hekman, 2016;Owens et al., 2011Owens et al., , 2013. Extrapolated to an interprofessional team, the theory states that each profession can recognize its strengths and weaknesses and thereby clarify its role (reflected awareness). ...
Article
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Purpose-Based on a resulting typing model, this paper focuses on four types of leaders (Approachables on the sidelines, Distanced overseers, Realistic succeeders and Dedicated sensitives), who differ in the analytical core category of "development of awareness." Design/methodology/approach-Internal team coaching is intended to strengthen leaders in the health care system. The Team Leader Coaching Programme (TLCP) was implemented as an internal coaching instrument at rehabilitation centers using a train-the-trainer format. Twenty-one team leaders were surveyed on their experience of the coaching process they implemented in their teams. The interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory method (GTM) as theoretically discussed by representatives of second-generation GTM (Charmaz, 2014). Findings-Use of the TLCP proved to be an intervention for initiating and enhancing an awareness development process regarding team leaders' reflections on their own position and leadership role, regardless of their profession. This process was found to be a prerequisite for implementing the learned content. The typing model is discussed given current contextual conditions in the rehabilitation system and their connectivity in practice for integrating coaching elements into daily management. Originality/value-This article presents a typology of healthcare leaders. Thanks to the reconstructive approach using grounded theory methodology, this article presents an in-depth analysis of the implementation process of a coaching program. The findings are both connectable to applied leadership research and useable for further development of training and interventions to strengthen team leaders in clinical settings.
... That is, one coworker could display especially better (or worse) performance when interacting with another coworker, on top of the first coworker's average individual tendency to perform well across all workplace situations. This work is the first to show the benefits of humility among samelevel coworkers and thereby contributes to the debate about the merit of humility as a virtue (Exline & Geyer, 2004;Owens et al., 2011). Some have construed humility as lowliness and low self-esteem (see a review of this position and its criticism in Tangney, 2000). ...
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A leader’s expressed humility has a favorable influence on subordinates’ job satisfaction, creativity, and performance. However, we know little about how humility affects one’s same-level coworkers. Shifting focus away from leader’s humility, we suggest that coworker humility can also produce positive effects but has a relationship-specific component. Some coworker relationships are characterized by greater expression of humility than others. Specifically, we hypothesize that when a coworker expresses a uniquely high degree of humility to another coworker (i.e., relationship-specific humility), the latter coworker experiences a uniquely high level of psychological safety (i.e., relationship-specific psychological safety), which in turn leads that coworker to perform better (i.e., relationship-specific performance). Pilot Study 1 (N = 155, in 32 teams, yielding 823 relationship-specific ratings) showed that humility has a substantial relationship-specific variance component, even in unacquainted teams. Pilot Study 2 (N = 180, in 39 teams, yielding 854 relationship-specific ratings) built on these results in a sample of moderately acquainted teams and showed that relationship-specific humility is associated with relationship-specific perceptions of performance. The Main Study (N = 133, in 32 well-acquainted work teams, yielding 555 relationship-specific ratings) tested our full model. It demonstrated that the association between relationship-specific humility and relationship-specific performance is mediated by relationship-specific psychological safety. We discuss how our findings advance humility research in the workplace by showing that a portion of humility expression is relationship-specific and stems from each employee’s unique interaction with another specific person, and that such relationship-specific humility affects relationship-specific performance.
... This is consistent with approaches of shared leadership, which aim to focus on the leadership and coaching of colleagues. The listed strategies also relate to research results on the construct of humility: Leadership humility, based on three dimensions of humility, can affect team performance by promoting constructive interpersonal processes (Owens and Hekman, 2016;Owens et al., 2011Owens et al., , 2013. Extrapolated to an interprofessional team, the theory states that each profession can recognize its strengths and weaknesses and thereby clarify its role (reflected awareness). ...
Article
Purpose: Based on a resulting typing model, this paper focuses on four types of leaders (Approachables on the sidelines, Distanced overseers, Realistic succeeders and Dedicated sensitives), who differ in the analytical core category of "development of awareness." Design/methodology/approach: Internal team coaching is intended to strengthen leaders in the health care system. The Team Leader Coaching Programme (TLCP) was implemented as an internal coaching instrument at rehabilitation centers using a train-the-trainer format. Twenty-one team leaders were surveyed on their experience of the coaching process they implemented in their teams. The interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory method (GTM) as theoretically discussed by representatives of second-generation GTM (Charmaz, 2014). Findings: Use of the TLCP proved to be an intervention for initiating and enhancing an awareness development process regarding team leaders' reflections on their own position and leadership role, regardless of their profession. This process was found to be a prerequisite for implementing the learned content. The typing model is discussed given current contextual conditions in the rehabilitation system and their connectivity in practice for integrating coaching elements into daily management. Originality/value: This article presents a typology of healthcare leaders. Thanks to the reconstructive approach using grounded theory methodology, this article presents an in-depth analysis of the implementation process of a coaching program. The findings are both connectable to applied leadership research and useable for further development of training and interventions to strengthen team leaders in clinical settings.
... Social behavior is the exchange of valuable material or non-material things, such as feelings of honor or prestige (Homans, 1958). Considering that leader humility is deemed as relational in nature (Owens et al., 2011) and serves as a relationship builder (Nielsen et al., 2013), we propose that supervisor-subordinate guanxi (SSG) might act as a mediator that accounts for the exchange effect between humble leadership and job performance. SSG is a kind of dyadic, specific, and emotive tie that has the ability to facilitate positive interactions between the parties linked by the tie (Bian, 2006, p. 312), perfectly capturing the essence of social exchange. ...
Article
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Although humility is a hallmark of many beloved and respected leaders, yet little is known about the impact of humble leadership on employee job performance. Drawing on social exchange theory and attribution theory, the current study suggests a moderated mediation model to elucidate how and when humble leadership encourages follower job performance. Analyses of multilevel, multisource data from 204 subordinates and 68 supervisors showed that humble leadership and employee job performance via supervisor–subordinate guanxi is moderated by perceived leader integrity, such that the indirect and positive relationship between humble leadership and employee job performance via supervisor–subordinate guanxi would be strengthened when perceived leader integrity is high rather than low. Theoretical and practical implications as well as limitations and future directions are discussed.
... Especially humble leaders, who evaluate objectively themselves and try to supplement their lack of abilities through the support of their subordinates, are expected to satisfy stakeholders' interests, creating a positive workplace environment [15]. However, empirical investigations about humble leadership in organizational settings are extremely limited [16] and humble leadership as a new type of independent leadership has not been the focus of academic interest over an extended period [17]. ...
... Based on philosophical and humanistic roots, management scholars have made a substantial effort to expand the construct of humility into the organizational context (Davis et al., 2011;Morris et al., 2005;Ou et al., 2014;Owens et al., 2011Owens et al., , 2013. Individuals with humility feel less entitled but more self-transcendent (Ashton and Lee, 2005;Kesebir, 2014;Morris et al., 2005;Tangney, 2002). ...
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Although research on leader humility is developing into a prominent literature, the majority of studies have focused on the dyadic or individual rather than collective outcomes of leader humility. Thus, our understanding of the influencing mechanisms and boundary conditions of leader humility remains limited, particularly on the collective work outcome of team creativity, which requires more voluntary effort from employees. Drawing on social cognitive theory and social interdependence theory, our study investigates how leader humility promotes team creativity through team creative efficacy, with the moderation of a contextual factor, task interdependence. We used a sample of 84 teams and 393 employees surveyed in two waves of data collection. Overall, our study yields a mediated moderation model in which the positive indirect effect of leader humility via team creative efficacy on team creativity is stronger when team task interdependence is low rather than high. This study extends our understanding of how leader humility may influence work teams collectively and how the effectiveness of such a leader characteristic may be influenced by a structural factor of the work team. Other theoretical contributions and practical implications are also discussed.
... Secondly, although the model and the results completely supported the relationship of the variables, several other leadership styles might influence the employee outcome which should be studied to further the research paradigm such as ethical leadership (Walumbwa et al., 2011) and humble leadership (Owens et al., 2011). These leadership styles may help identify employee outcomes in project-based organisations. ...
... Further, the transcendence aspect of humility is "grounded in a selfview that something greater than the self exists" (Morris et al., 2005;Ou et al., 2014: 37), which causes humble social entrepreneurs to be connected to a larger movement, perspective, or purpose for operating their ventures and be driven by community-oriented goals like reducing poverty or improving the environment (Nielsen & Marrone, 2018). Humble social entrepreneurs also are not threatened by the success of others in their ecosystems, see the value in being part of a strong community of capable social entrepreneurs, and are more likely to view other SIEE participants as assets, not threats (Owens et al., 2011). Because of their appreciation for others and their interdependence-orientation, humble social entrepreneurs acknowledge the ecosystem's role in their successes, are less likely to attribute their successes solely to their own efforts, and will desire to reciprocate and "give back" to their SIEEs (Abubakre et al., 2021;Owens et al., 2013). ...
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Why do some social entrepreneurs embrace the assistance of their social impact entrepreneurial ecosystems (SIEEs) in creating and scaling social ventures while others go-it-alone and do not capitalize on the resources in their local communities? To explain this difference in social entrepreneurs , we draw from work in leadership and positive organizational scholarship to develop a multi-level theory of humility in SIEEs. We theorize that social entrepreneurs' humility affects the extent to which they seek and contribute ecosystem resources. The humility-driven resource behaviors of social entrepreneurs, in turn, influence SIEE-level coordination. Our theory of humility in ecosystems contributes to understanding the micro-foundations of SIEEs and has implications for social entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders.
... Humility is very important to be developed in school because it is related to improving academic performance (Owens et al., 2011) which is in line with the opinion of Rowatt et.al., (2006) that humility and academic success are positively correlated. Landrum (2011) explains that humble individuals are able to admit mistakes and limitations in knowledge as well as compassionate to others and down-to-earth. ...
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The problem of low humility impacts bullying, arrogance, and antisocial behavior that is often found in schools. Humility is one of the character strengths, which is defined as the ability to accept suggestions from others, respect and respect others, not only think about yourself but also care about others. This study aims to determine the prevalence of the humility character of high school students in the city of Semarang. What conducted this survey research on 246 high school students aged 14-18 years. The instrument used to determine students' humility is the humility scale adapted from Elliot (2010) with 32 items with aspects including openness, self-forgetfulness, accurate self-assessment, and focus on others with a Likert scale type. The validity of the humility scale is 0.842, and the reliability is 0.901. Students with high humility are 182 students (74%), while 34 students (13.8%) and low 30% of students. The results showed that most students have high humility, and four aspects of humility have a significant relationship. The independent t-test results obtained sign 0.431 (p <0.05), meaning that there is no difference in the humility of male and female students. For further research, it is recommended to test the effectiveness of an intervention to increase humility with an individual or group counseling approach. Abstrak Permasalahan rendahnya humility berdampak pada perilaku bullying, arogan maupun antisosial seringkali ditemui di sekolah. Rendah hati merupakan salah satu character strengths yang didefinisikan sebagai kemampuan untuk menerima saran dari orang lain, menghargai dan menghormati orang lain, tidak hanya memikirkan diri sendiri namun juga peduli dengan orang lain. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui prevelensi karakter humility siswa SMA di kota Semarang. Penelitian survey ini yang dilakukan pada 246 siswa SMA dengan rentang usia 14-18 tahun. Instrument yang digunakan untuk mengetahui rendah hati siswa yakni humility scale yang diadaptasi dari Elliot and Thrash (2010) sejumlah 32 item dengan aspek diantaranya openness, self-forgetfulness, accurate self-assessment, dan focused on others dengan jenis skala likert. Validitas yang humility scale adalah 0.816 dan reliabilitasnya 0.901. Siswa yang memiliki rendah hati tinggi sebesar 182 siswa (74%), sedang 34 siswa (13.8%), dan rendah 30% siswa. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa mayoritas siswa memiliki humility yang tinggi, dan empat aspek humility saling memiliki hubungan yang signifikan. Hasil uji independent t-test diperoleh sign 0.431 (p<0.05), artinya tidak terjadi perbedaan humility siswa laki-laki dan perempuan. Untuk penelitian selanjutnya direkomendasikan untuk menguji keefektifan suatu intervensi untuk meningkatkan humility dengan
... In organisational parlance, humility appears to allow a person to make a clear SWOT (i.e. strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of their intrapersonal resources (Owens, et al., 2011). ...
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The main objective of this study is to analyse the impact of authentic leadership on resilience, directly or when mediated by humility, in small and medium-sized enterprises and small businesses since these are personal characteristics that are increasingly determining and differentiating. All over the world, these organisations have been feeling the need to adapt to major societal changes that are taking place at the level of economic, social, political, cultural and ethical relations. The emergence of these new societal conjunctures imposes new conditions on organisations and rebuilds the world of work and business. In this way, authentic leadership and its influence on the behaviour of employees and organisations as a whole are increasingly gaining the attention of academics. This research empirically validates the theoretical arguments that suggest that authentic leadership relates to humility and resilience, both directly and indirectly, and demonstrates that employees are essential resources to help organisations face competitive challenges, take advantage of their employees' potential, and promote organisational efficiency competitive advantages over competitors. The study is based on a questionnaire applied to 109 employees of Portuguese companies, who, in the performance of their professional activity, are in a position of direct subordinates of the top management of these SMEs and small businesses. The analysis of the results obtained allows the conclusion that authentic leaders arouse more humility and more resilience in their subordinates.
... Th e studies to be carried out in this context will be benefi cial in supporting the extant literature. Besides, eff orts to create a work environment that enables employees to seize the initiative and act independently with a positive attitude can be considered the topics of future work (Luthans, 2002;Owens et al., 2012). With developments in the education fi eld of Gastronomy and Culinary in Turkey in recent years, the rise in employee training levels leads to changes in the perceptions and expectations of kitchen employees. ...
Article
This study aims to examine any possible effects of servant leadership (SL) on psychological empowerment (PE) in terms of sub dimensionality. Implementing convenience sampling, 356 questionnaires were collected from five-star hotel employees in Antalya. The overall relationships were tested by conducting Pearson's correlation analysis, and all constructs were subjected to the exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Later on, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted in terms of providing support for dimensionality and confirmed convergent and discriminant validity via Amos. To test the hypothesized model, structural equation modeling was employed. The model showed that Agapao love has a substantial significant positive effect on the meaning sub-dimension of the PE, and the same effect was observed in the competence and impact sub-dimensions of the PE. Along with Agapao love, trust was also significant and had positive effects on PE sub-dimensions. Referring to our discussion in this paper, leaders should support their followers in terms of psychological empowerment and preferably closely interact with their subordinates as an expected leadership behavior in service enterprises. Besides, trustworthiness is a crucial cue for kitchen employees in terms of motivation, inspiration, and competence. Keywords: leadership; servant leadership; empowerment; psychological empowerment; structural regression.
... Remaining humble and engaging in reflective practice, such as by seeking feedback from reflection partners and mentors, prevented stagnation. This process formed an intellectual humility feedback loop that facilitated continual iterations through Stage 2, enabling allies to remain open to further learning, adapt to the rapidly changing dynamics of the social justice space (see Owens et al., 2012), and continually refine their Stage 3 actions. This recurrent loop might capture a critical difference between good and exemplary allies. ...
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As organizations take on grand challenges in gender equality, anti-racism, LGBTQ+ protections and workplace inclusion, many well-intentioned individuals from dominant groups (e.g., cisgender men, Caucasian, heterosexual) are stepping forward as allies toward underrepresented or marginalized group members (e.g., cisgender women, People of Color, LGBTQ+ identified employees). Past research and guidance assume an inevitable need for external motivation, reflected in the ‘business case’ for diversity and in top-down policies to drive equity and inclusion efforts. This qualitative study explored internal motivations in the form of morally motivated virtues of 25 peer-nominated exemplary allies serving in leadership positions. In-depth life/career story interviews were used to identify the virtues that supported their allyship journeys. Findings demonstrated that they tapped into several virtues that served distinct functions in a 4-stage allyship development process: Stage 1—Energizing psychological investment (compassion, fairness); Stage 2—Thinking through allyship-relevant complexities (intellectual humility, perspective-taking, wisdom); Stage 3—Initiating action (prudence, moral courage, honesty); Stage 4—Committing to allyship (perseverance, patience). We call this the ‘EThIC model of virtue-based allyship development.’ This study has implications for theory and research on a virtue-based approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.
... While researchers have argued that leader humility promotes positive organisational outcomes (e.g., Morris, Brotheridge, & Urbanski, 2005;Nielsen, Marrone, & Slay, 2010;Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2011), there are relatively few empirical studies (e.g. Liu, Mao & Chen, 2017;Qian et al, 2018), and only two experimental studies (Rego et al, 2017;Zhu, Zhang & Shen, 2019), that have directly tested these theorised impacts of leader humility. ...
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Background: Recently, research has demonstrated that leader humility enhances team performance (Rego et al., 2017) as well as employee resilience (Zhu, Zhang, & Shen, 2019). The current research extends this body of work by testing whether humility is perceived as a desirable trait in leaders and by disentangling distinct forms of humility (relational vs. intellectual). Aims: To experimentally test perceptions of humility in leaders, specifically comparing relational and intellectual humility in leaders. Methods: Study 1 (N = 64) compared explicit perceptions of humble leadership through observer-report measures and implicit perceptions of humble leadership using an Implicit Association Test. Study 2 (N = 140) developed four vignettes describing variants of relationally and intellectually humble leaders and used observer ratings to explore the perceptions of each leader. Results: Study 1 showed that humility (both relational and intellectual) is perceived as a desirable strength in leaders. However, IAT scores indicated that participants associated humility with low-status roles and arrogance with high-status roles. Study 2 showed that humble leaders were rated as significantly warmer, more competent and effective than arrogant leaders. Additionally, the intellectual humility of participants moderated the relationship between the perceived humility and effectiveness of leaders. Specifically, while all participants perceived humble leaders as more effective than arrogant leaders, this difference in perceived effectiveness was stronger among participants high in self-rated intellectual humility. Conclusions: The current research demonstrates that humble leaders are viewed as more desirable and effective, regardless of the type of humility displayed, although this was moderated by the participant’s own intellectual humility. FULL TEXT AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.nationalwellbeingservice.org/volumes/volume-4-2020/volume-4-article-14/
... That is, one coworker could display especially better (or worse) performance when interacting with another coworker, on top of the first coworker's average individual tendency to perform well across all workplace situations. This work is the first to show the benefits of humility among samelevel coworkers and thereby contributes to the debate about the merit of humility as a virtue (Exline & Geyer, 2004;Owens et al., 2011). Some have construed humility as lowliness and low self-esteem (see a review of this position and its criticism in Tangney, 2000). ...
Article
Humble leaders have subordinates with improved organizational outcomes such as job satisfaction, creativity, and performance. In this line of research, humility is typically construed as a leader trait that affects subordinates. Little is known about the effect of humility among same-level co-workers. We address this gap by uncovering the effect of humility on performance within dyads of co-workers in teams. We hypothesize that humility perception is situational, affected by co-workers (not only by the supervisor), and dyadic. It rises or falls, depending on the identity of the co-worker one interacts with. Also, we propose that humility is related to performance at the dyadic level. Finally, we suggest that the relationship between humility and performance is mediated by psychological safety at the dyadic level. We studied humility with the Social Relations Model (SRM) both in unacquainted (Study 1), moderately-acquainted (Study 2), and well-acquainted work teams (Study 3) and found support for our hypotheses. Counterintuitively, humility is a product of the employees’ unique combination and not just an individual-difference construct. Moreover, this unique-dyadic combination also affects dyadic performance and mediated by psychological safety.
... Remaining humble and engaging in reflective practice, such as by seeking feedback from reflection partners and mentors, prevented stagnation. This process formed an intellectual humility feedback loop that facilitated continual iterations through Stage 2, enabling allies to remain open to further learning, adapt to the rapidly changing dynamics of the social justice space (see Owens et al., 2012), and continually refine their Stage 3 actions. This recurrent loop might capture a critical difference between good and exemplary allies. ...
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As organizations take on grand challenges in gender equality, anti-racism, LGBTQ+ protections and workplace inclusion, many well-intentioned individuals from dominant groups (e.g., cisgender men, Caucasian, heterosexual) are stepping forward as allies toward under-represented or marginalized group members (e.g., cisgender women, People of Color, LGBTQ+ identified employees). Past research and guidance assume an inevitable need for external motivation, reflected in the ‘business case’ for diversity and in top-down policies to drive equity and inclusion efforts. This qualitative study explored internal motivations in the form of morally-motivated virtues of 25 peer-nominated exemplary allies serving in leadership positions. In-depth life/career story interviews were used to identify the virtues that supported their allyship journeys. Findings demonstrated that they tapped into several virtues that served distinct functions in a 4-stage allyship development process: Stage 1 - Energizing psychological investment (compassion, fairness); Stage 2 - Thinking through allyship-relevant complexities (intellectual humility, perspective-taking, wisdom); Stage 3 - Initiating action (prudence, moral courage, honesty); Stage 4 - Commiting to allyship (perseverance, patience). We call this the ‘EThIC model of virtue-based allyship development.’ This study has implications for theory and research on a virtue-based approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
... In personality psychology, humility is considered a stable, positive, and enduring human trait that is influenced by situational factors (Peterson & Seligman, 2004;Tangney, 2000). Thus, humility is a virtue, it varies according to the situation, and a meta-attitude can develop (Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2012). Owens and Hekman (2012) examined and built the theory of leader humility. ...
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Purpose: This study serves two purposes: first, it analyzes the effects of the overall perception of justice in service industry organizations on their employees’ innovative behavior; second, it investigates whether leader humility moderates the relationship between the aforementioned constructs. Design/methodology/approach: This study is quantitative in nature. A cross-sectional survey method was used to collect data from 359 respondents, and a PROCESS macro for SPSS was used for the moderation analysis. Findings: The results show that employees who perceive fairness within their organization will reciprocate with innovativeness and that humility is a positive factor that increases innovative behaviors. Originality/value: Few studies have addressed the effect of the overall perception of justice on individuals’ innovative behavior in service industries in developing economies and collectivist cultures. There is also a lack of empirical support regarding the role of leader humility in employees’ innovative behavior. This study provides new insights into service employees’ innovative behavior in a collectivist society and has implications for managers working in the services sector.
... Humble individuals are also open to receiving advice and feedback (Owens et al., 2011) and have a genuine desire to learn from others (Tangey, 2002). Humble individuals tend to focus on their low-performance areas, indicating a desire for improvement and receptivity to feedback from others (Owens et al., 2013). ...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of self-other rating agreement (SOA) on ethical decisions and behavior. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 169 students (60 women and 109 men) enrolled in a part-time, regional MBA program was divided into three SOA categories: (1) Self-aware, individuals whose self-ratings matched observer ratings, (2) Underraters, those whose self-ratings were lower than observer ratings and (3) Overraters, individuals whose self-ratings were higher than other ratings. Ethical behavior was evaluated with the completion of a managerial in-basket assessment. Findings The results revealed that ethical behavior varied by SOA, with underraters exhibiting the highest levels of ethical behavior, followed by self-aware (i.e. accurate) and then overraters. One of the intriguing results is that underraters displayed more ethical behaviors than accurate raters, raising questions about the use of accurate self-assessments as an indicator of personal and professional effectiveness. Originality/value The results indicate that organizations should consider SOA in their human resource processes because it has important implications for employee training, selection and promotion. While prior research has examined the effect of SOA on performance, commitment and leadership perceptions, the authors contribute to the literature by examining whether SOA influences actual ethical decisions and actions.
... Historically, viewing humility in a positive light has been controversial and psychologists and philosophers have been thoughtful about the circumstances under which humility is and is not considered favorable (e.g., Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2012;Whitcomb, Battaly, Baehr, & Howard-Snyder, 2017). Despite this, most contem porary psychological research, shaped by the field of positive psychology, has examined IH as a potentially beneficial quality (see Hoyle & Krumrei-Mancuso, 2021, for review). ...
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Recent research has highlighted the relevance of intellectual humility to politics. Among a U.S. sample (N = 852), we examined self-reported sociopolitical intellectual humility (SIH), a nonthreatening awareness of the fallibility of one’s views about topics central to society and politics. SIH was associated with being less likely to dislike/avoid political discussion, and with more political tolerance, less social dominance orientation, and more values and behavioral intentions focused on social equality, even when controlling political orientation and other relevant factors. SIH was also associated with more positive and less negative views of an individual expressing a political viewpoint. Further, SIH moderated the extent to which initial agreement with a political statement resulted in opinion change on the basis of hearing another person's arguments on the topic. These findings may point to ways SIH is relevant to people's attitudes toward others in society.
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Team performance can be eroded or undermined when team members intentionally withhold information, such as suggestions for improvements, or concerns about issues that matter for the team. Yet, we know very little about whether silence in teams (team silence) in fact reduces team performance, and if it does, how team silence might be ameliorated. Grounded in social information processing (SIP) theory, we hypothesize and investigate the role of leaders as a potent social informational source to reduce team silence and in turn, enhance team performance. We further posit the role of team commitment to the organization as an important amplifier of humble leadership in reducing team silence. Across a programmatic series of five empirical studies involving experimental, multisource, and multiwave field data, we found support for the negative relationship between leader humility and team silence. Team silence also mediated the relationship between leader humility and team performance in a variety of work contexts. Findings supported that the benefits of leader humility were amplified in teams with higher levels of organizational commitment. Overall, this paper contributes new theoretical and practical insights by identifying leader humility as a preventative antecedent to team silence, with team commitment to the organization as an important qualifier of the impact of humble leadership on teams.
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Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and social capital, yet be overshadowed by self‐promoting rivals for promotions. We propose that through informal career mentoring, humble leaders can improve their organizational status and promotability. We tested our model among a multisource sample of 610 leaders across 18 industries and 21 job functions who participated in a leader development program. Leader humility was reported by the focal leaders' peers, leader mentoring behavior was reported by the focal leaders' direct reports, leader status was reported by the focal leaders' immediate bosses, and leader promotability was reported by the focal leaders' superiors. Results generally confirmed that leader humility predicted leader mentoring behavior, which in turn predicted leader status, and ultimately higher leader promotability ratings. We discuss how our findings extend and enrich the literatures on leader humility and mentoring, showing how humble leaders can ascend organizational hierarchies.
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Nonprofit organizations increasingly face surprising and disruptive shocks, beyond financial setbacks, that challenge an organization's operations, long‐term survival, and success. To continue to execute their mission, nonprofits must be resilient. Despite the importance of resilience in nonprofits, more research is needed to understand the factors that build organizational resilience and how leaders can help promote resilience. We conducted a qualitative case study, consisting of 23 interviews with organizational members and key partners, fieldwork, and archival information, of a documented resilient nonprofit organization. Our findings suggest that leaders can enhance resilience by gaining access to resources through collaboration, which is in line with previous theorizing. Our results add to previous research by providing a more nuanced understanding of how collaboration can facilitate resilience. Specifically, our findings suggest that resilience may be enhanced when organizational humility drives leaders to strategically constrain their network primarily to partners that share a common mission. Our research contributes predominantly to the organizational resilience literature, while offering more auxiliary contributions to the organizational humility literature. Further, our research offers practical guidance for how leaders of nonprofits can develop resilience in their organizations.
Chapter
This chapter reviews key concepts and findings from the vast authentic leadership and relational transparency literatures that privilege honesty, self-awareness, truthfulness in communication practices, humility, relational alignment, and concordant behaviors as traits and practices contributing to transparent leadership and leading to significant positive downstream consequences. Critiques of these literatures are also examined in this chapter, which argue that mainstream treatments of transparent leaders tend to be overly simplistic, one-dimensional, static, decontextualized, unrealistic and positively biased, detracting from academic rigor, and direct practical application.KeywordsTransparencyAuthentic leadershipRelational transparencySelf-awarenessHumility
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This article presents the Positive Leadership Action Framework (PLAF) to structure Positive Leadership (PL). The novelty of the PLAF is that it incorporates the connections of PL to positive outcomes (financial and economic performance and social well-being) and organizational virtuousness. Also, it acknowledges its conditional nature on the virtues to achieve flourishing within the organization and society at large. We argue that the leader’s actions function as the engine for positive change within the organization, bridging the gap between individual virtues and organizational virtuousness and creating a feedback loop among both. To develop a positive organization, a leader needs to create positive assumptions among (and about) coworkers, positively impact the personal and professional development of employees, and balance positive formal and informal conditions at work. To do so, it is a sine qua non condition that the positive leader fosters his/her personal development by exercising the virtues and developing practical wisdom. In this way, the positive leader automatically provides followers with a vision of the final end towards the common good and achieves to set his/her organization on a pathway towards excellence.
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Humility is a concept grounded in a self-view that something greater than oneself exists. A multitude of disciplines to date have sought to understand how humility impacts leaders, as well as the individuals, teams, and organizations they lead. Despite overlapping research questions, methodologies, and empirical contexts, studies examining leader humility have developed largely in isolation with little overlap between fields. This has created a fundamental divide between micro and macro researchers who suggest that humility is conceptualized as both a mutable behavioral state and a stable leader trait, respectively. We provide a systematic review of research on leader humility at multiple organizational levels of analysis to provide linkages across disciplinary and theoretical divides. We couple our systematic review with a meta-analysis of 212 unique studies, identifying 99 estimates for the relationships between leader humility and numerous individual, team, and organizational variables. Among all variables, we find humble leadership most strongly predicts followers’ satisfaction with the leader and the leaders’ participative decision making. We also find humble leadership does not affect their own job performance or the performance of organizations, but improves the performance of their followers and teams. Building on our results, we call for research across academic disciplines.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how CEO humility influences inter-firm collaboration (IFC) and the moderating roles of firm status (a firm's relative position in a social order) and environmental uncertainty on such an effect. Design/methodology/approach As the firms were nested in township clusters, the theoretical model was tested using hierarchical linear modeling to analyze a multisource and multilevel onsite survey from 254 firms in Chinese township clusters. CEO humility was measured using an 18-item scale reported by both the human resource managers and the financial managers. Besides using CEO self-reported ratings as the measurement of IFC, this study employed additional measurements to further validate the findings, including the IFC reported by the administrative managers and two alternative measures for IFC reported by both CEO and the administrative managers of each firm. Findings This study found that CEO humility is positively related to IFC (H1), and that this association is marginally more salient when firms have high status (H2) but less salient when firms face a high level of environmental uncertainty (H3). Practical implications Findings suggest that firms with humble CEOs may benefit from better inter-firm collaborative relationships, especially when firms have high status (i.e. possess many well-known trademarks), but not when they are in an uncertain environment. Originality/value Previous humility studies focused on the influence of leader humility on individual and team outcomes, but little attention has been paid to organizational outcomes. This research extends the implications of leader humility to inter-firm relationships. Moreover, this paper explores the boundary conditions of the influence of CEO humility, thus advancing the contextual understanding of leader humility.
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To better understand the philosophy of humility within the context of healthcare delivery and health professions education, it is essential to explore the dynamic history of the concept of humility. In this chapter, we pay special attention to the ambiguities of humility and provide a brief overview of philosophical thought related to humility through antiquity, classic Christian theology, the Enlightenment, and from the perspective of more contemporary philosophical scholars. In particular, we consider how the mounting (conceptual) ambiguities of humility over time relates to the overarching perception of humility within healthcare delivery and health professions education. We conclude by offering new directions for humility research within these specific fields.
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Humility is thought to be associated with greater accuracy in self‐assessment. However, clear evidence is lacking. Two studies tested this central proposition. In Study 1 (N = 258), participants completed a task on logical reasoning before estimating both their raw and relative performance. Study 2 (N = 214) was aimed at replicating Study 1 with a task on English fluency. Results from both studies were consistent. There was evidence of overestimation bias across each sample in which participants’ estimated performance was higher than their actual performance. More importantly, humility was associated with less overestimation bias, such that the difference in estimated and actual performance was smaller or non‐existent among those higher in humility. We also replicated the Dunning–Kruger effect in which participants of lower ability in these skills (i.e., lower actual scores) were most likely to overestimate their performance. Further analyses found that the negative relationship between humility and overestimation bias was not moderated by actual performances. However, the same analyses revealed that the Dunning–Kruger effect was also not moderated by humility. Hence, there is strong replicable evidence that humility is associated with less overestimation bias, supporting the view that greater accuracy in self‐assessment is an attribute of humility, and that this relationship is independent of actual ability, but humility does not affect the robust Dunning–Kruger effect.
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Based on social exchange theory, we develop and test a longitudinal model in which leaders’ expressed humility and team members’ helping behavior reciprocally influence each other over time and ultimately predict subsequent team performance and turnover. Using multi‐source, 3‐wave repeated measures data from 281 work teams, our cross‐lagged panel modeling results supported the hypotheses. We found that leader humility increased subsequent team helping behavior, and team helping behavior also promoted leader humility at a later time. As compared with leader humility, team helping behavior is a more proximal predictor of team performance and reduced team turnover rate. We found that leader humility has indirect effects on team performance and team turnover through the mediating role of team helping behavior. These findings shed new light on how leaders and teams can develop through their respective humble and helping behaviors, and how this reciprocal relationship ultimately enhances team effectiveness and helps reduce turnover of team members.
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Recent academic research has proliferated around the construct of humble leadership. Humble leadership involves having an accurate view of oneself, recognizing the contributions of followers, and modeling teachability. Given the growing interest in this construct, we provide a review of the humble leadership literature. First, we clarify how humble leadership has been defined and measured in the current literature and discuss how it compares to moral‐based leadership approaches. Second, we review the extant literature by examining humble leadership’s theoretical and nomological network, highlighting the antecedents, outcomes, moderators, and mediators. Third, we provide an overview of key methodological strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we conclude by drawing upon our review of the literature to present directions for future research that will advance the understanding of humble leadership. In sum, our review highlights the key elements and findings of where humble leadership has been and indicates ways to drive this literature forward.
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Humility has long been a topic of interest and inquiry for philosophers and theologians, resulting in a deep and rich literature on the virtue. Around the turn of the century, the topic began to attract the attention of psychological scientists, owing in part to the emergence of positive psychology with its emphasis on positive human functioning. Since the publication of Tangney’s (2000) influential review, in which she described humility as “a neglected virtue in the social and psychological sciences,” (p. 70) interest in the topic from psychological scientists has grown steadily. A search of articles published in journals indexed by PsycINFO found only four articles including the term humility in 2001. In contrast, 123 articles including the term were published in 2018, continuing a trend of more than 100 such articles published per year, starting in 2014. A key concern for psychological scientists, who rely primarily on empirical methods of inquiry, is how to operationally define abstract concepts such as humility. One approach to operationally defining such concepts is the development and use of measurement instruments and strategies that capture individual differences in their expression. Noting the necessity of measurement for empirical research on humility, Tangney (2000) observed that “Work in this area would be greatly enhanced by the development of theoretically informed measures of humility” (p. 70) and that “psychologists’ expertise in the area of measurement would be especially welcome” (p. 71). Psychological scientists have answered Tangney’s call, resulting in the development of numerous empirical methods for measuring humility. In fact, the number of humility measures and measurement strategies has expanded to the point that the need has arisen to review, summarize, and synthesize the available options. Several such reviews have recently appeared in print (e.g., Card, 2018; Hill et al., 2017; Worthington and Allison, 2018; McElroy-Heltzel et al., 2019; Nielsen and Marrone, 2018). Drawing on two decades of empirical research on humility, our goal in this chapter is to extend recent reviews of psychological measures of the concept by offering a framework for choosing among extant measures and developing new measures of humility. The framework takes into account the motivating research question and chosen research strategy. Although our focus is psychological measurement, conceptualizations of the concept and, in some cases, the measures themselves have been informed by philosophical and theological inquiry on humility. Thus, our framework is relevant for philosophers and theologians interested in integrating findings from empirical research by psychological scientists into their conceptual models or developing their own empirical studies of humility. We refer to specific extant measures as examples of different measurement approaches, but do not recommend one over, another apart from emphasizing the importance of fit between measure, research question, and research strategy. Rather, we suggest that, at this early point in the history of empirical research on humility, and given the specific challenges involved in measuring the concept, the availability and routine use of multiple measures is warranted.
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