The Role of Humility in Receiving Feedback

With that stark difference fresh in your mind, the difference in how a handful of managers in a completely foreign industry refused input from anyone and how I’ve seen Mark Cole actively solicit thoughts from someone as removed from his company’s bottom line as me, let’s consider the significant role humility has in receiving feedback. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone with an inflated ego request feedback, especially from their minions. More often than not, those are the kind of folks I referred to earlier as avoiding honest feedback at all costs. To them, the idea that someone else may have knowledge they don’t is something they’re just not willing to embrace - and they certainly don’t want anyone around them seeing that as a possibility… Before addressing the role humility has in this equation, consider how willing you are to invest your time and energy into providing feedback to someone who clearly has no interest in it and has shown just how far they’re willing to go to avoid acting on it. As difficult as it is, there’s certainly a limit to how much feedback I’m willing to provide someone like that. Being far more direct than the majority of the population, I’m willing to bet most folks will shy away from offering feedback long before I throw in the towel. (Please know, that’s not me bragging. If anything, it should show just how stubborn I am!) And when we’re no longer willing to offer an authority figure feedback, how much of that discretionary effort I talked about through What’s KILLING Your Profitability? and Leading With A Clear Purpose do you think they’ve earned?

Now, for the contrast… The humility I’ve experienced in each one-on-one interaction with Mark Cole since 2015 has been nothing short of stunning. The first time I remember providing him with feedback that didn’t fall in line with what all the groupies were telling him, those who were more concerned about positioning than the organization’s results, was in October 2020. I told him I thought he needed to be more intentional about his public presence rather than primarily being John’s number two. While those of us within the Maxwell Leadership community had grown very familiar with the level of value Mark could add, few outside that community knew his name then even though he had been John’s CEO for a decade. Fast-forward several years, Mark hosts the weekly Maxwell Leadership podcast and has been willing to accept some main stage speaking roles outside the organization, including a few for us. He was also willing to write the foreword to my first book. I can’t pretend that my feedback led to any of that, but I was specific in sharing it from a place of serving everyone involved rather than it being just about him. His humility was why he had stayed in the background publicly, but I truly believed that was preventing the masses from having access to the value he would add. 

The most important part of all that, at least for me, was how he received that feedback when I offered it. He was gracious, thanking me for what he took as a compliment, and assured me that he’d consider it over time. That showed me how open he was to input. As he provided context for a point in a more recent conversation, Mark mentioned something he had discussed just two weeks prior with the President of Argentina. Soon after, he told me about something he and John were considering, then asked for my input. The details of the conversation aren’t the point. His openness to not only accepting feedback, but to actively seeking is. Unlike the managers who neither wanted it or were willing to act on it, I am very willing to offer input anytime Mark asks. His humility from the beginning proved that I was safe to offer (as if I’ve ever really cared about being safe), and it’s earned him my discretionary effort any time I can provide it!

Just like I saw Mark be a bit reluctant, at least initially, to take center-stage alongside John in more public settings, I’ve known some great people underestimate the value they can add to others through one-on-one mentorship. In complete transparency, I’m raising my hand. I frequently mention how basic my background is. The main reason I work as hard as I do to make time for anyone willing to ask a question ties back to how much the mentors I’ve referenced here, and so many others, have impacted me; I feel a huge obligation to pass that on. That said, humility is crucial for anyone to effectively mentor others so we’ll pick up there next time.