Watch Lord Alan Sugar on BBC One’s The Apprentice and you may think that strength, dominance and bullishness are the perfect qualities for business leaders but in fact the complete opposite is true, with those seeking to reach the top better off staying humble.
So says a new academic study, which examined the relationship between humility, mentoring, status, and promotability, and found that leaders who were most humble had the potential to wield significant influence within their organisations.
Led by Dr Elsa Chan, lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at the University of Sussex Business School, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and Nanyang Technological University quizzed 610 leaders across 18 industries and 21 job functions.
The resultant report reveals that those demonstrating characteristics of humility – notably being open to feedback, appreciative of others’ strengths and contributions and honest about mistakes – can accrue trust by building strong relationships among their colleagues; all of which can be instrumental in advancing careers and gaining influence within their organisations.
Dr Chan said: “While some leaders climb the corporate ladder by taking a dominance route which could be costly, our research reveals that humble leaders take an alternative route – the status route that increases their influence.
“Our study suggests that humble leaders can create and capture some human capital value through informal mentoring and enhance promotability within organisations. It sheds light on the potential of humble leaders to not only positively impact their followers but also to advance their own careers within organisations.”
The researchers focused on human capital theory, which suggests people can improve their value with a greater focus on education and training. They found that humble leaders engage in behaviours that develop others naturally and, through this informal mentoring, build human capital and gain prestige, respect, and prominence.
Dr David Hekman, co-author on the study and associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, added: “The general assumption is that humility doesn’t aid a leader’s personal career growth, with non-humble leaders often seen enjoying significant career success. Our study challenges this notion.
“This new understanding is crucial for re-evaluating current perceptions in human resource management about the value of humility in leadership.”
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