How Positive Leadership empowers through humility

Welcome to another edition of Positive Leadership and You. 

This month we look at humility: why it is such a powerful quality to bring into our lives; how it can empower others to do more, and how it can increase our positive impact in the world.

Me: Focusing on our personal growth, wellbeing and being positive.

Humility requires a change of perspective. Seeing yourself as a small part of a much bigger story helps. Recognizing your responsibilities to future generations can be transformative.  

This sense of humility is at the heart of positive leadership.

One leader who embodies this is Dr Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, former UN Under-Secretary-General who served as the Executive Director of UN Women, and Deputy President of South Africa.

Here are two takeaways from my recent podcast conversation with her:

1. Remember that you are where you are because somebody else got there first and made it possible that future generations will take it to the next level.
2. I am renting my space on Earth to prepare it for the future generations. I have to pay my dues, and my dues are doing the best for the people that are around me now.

Phumzile’s inspiring journey as an activist, a policymaker, a political leader and a campaigner for universal access to education, has always been rooted in humility. She recognizes how others have helped create a pathway for her and in turn, this has motivated her to lead by example and invest in the growth of others.

Another inspiring conversation I had on my podcast, was with Reeta Roy, president and CEO of the Mastercard Foundation. Like Phumzile, Reeta also believes that “our lives are shaped by the people who come into our life, who teach us [and] create opportunities for us”. It is therefore the role of a leader to create the space for people to learn from each other. Having a growth mindset and being open to learning from everyone you meet, is the behavior of a positive leader.  

Listen to my recent conversation with Phumzile for more lessons in servant leadership here:

Learn how Reeta puts humility into practice here:

Me & Others: Connecting with and empowering others to achieve more.

Success as a leader is never just down to one person’s achievements. It’s also about being given chances (sometimes to fail). It’s about being coached and mentored. And having family, friends and a team supporting you. If you are a leader or want to be one, seek out the people who will help and recognize they play a big part in making you the leader you become. Then make sure you “pay it forward” when you can.

Former business leader, Harvard Business School professor and author of ‘True North’, Bill George has a great way of framing the importance of a leader shifting from “I” to “we” and serving others. When we spoke, Bill told me:

Early in life, everything is about performance basically as an individual… But you’ve got to make that transition from “I” to “we.” And I think when you come through the “I” position you start to think people are there to serve you, and that’s just wrong. I believe we’re all servant leaders. We’re there to serve other people. And if we do that well, then we become “we” leaders….…

So, what is a “we” leader?

“We” leaders are primarily concerned with the welfare of their people, the development of their people, and reaching their full potential. “I” leaders take the credit for what other people do and they create a toxicity, and frankly, that’s why people quit, because I don't want to work for a person like that. 

As a leader, it is not your role to be the smartest all the time. Simply put, you can’t be, it’s impossible! A humble leader surrounds themselves with people who are truly great at things they themselves are not good at.

You need to empower others to achieve more. And it is through recognizing this and being humbler, that leaders can create the environment in which others can flourish and their organizations can succeed.

Listen again to my conversation with Bill on finding your True North here:

Me & the World: Having a positive impact on the world.  

In the world today, the pace of change itself can be a humbling experience. Challenges like climate change are so great that no one person or organization can solve them alone.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jesper Brodin for the podcast to learn from his leadership journey as CEO of the Ingka Group, whose core business is IKEA Retail. This included navigating the company through the pandemic, which was an incredibly humbling experience for Jesper.

To be successful, Jesper had to take risks and be humble about the fact that things might not always work out. He had an important lesson to teach me:

The future is more fragile. Ideas are more fragile. And therefore, I think one of the values that our founder always kept center was the right and the obligation to make mistakes and the drive for entrepreneurship.

Change is built on taking leaps into the unknown from a concrete base. That base is everything that has come before. In Jesper’s words, leaders must learn to “strike a dynamic relation between loving the past and creating the future.”

Learn how Jesper learned to stand on the shoulders of giants here:

I share Jesper’s faith in the future, and I, like Jesper, am an optimist. One reason is that young people give me a lot of hope.

In October, SKEMA Business School, which I chair, published a massive AI-enabled global consultation with people aged 15 to 29 called Youth Talks.  What is clear is that young people want urgently to drive positive change and move society in a new direction.

This demands a leadership model like Jesper’s, that puts humility and brave action at the heart of everything. I have written more about this model, here:

And you can read the findings from Youth Talks here:

I hope something in this month's newsletter inspires you to bring more humility into your life. Don't forget to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Talk soon.

jp