Humility as a Counter to Positional Authority
In detailing the role mentors play in helping bridge our leadership gaps, I shared an example Terry provided in dozens of behavior-based safety training sessions explaining that influence, not authority defines leadership. The humility we’ve been looking at here not only has the power to overcome ego, it can counter issues related to traditional chain-of-command in positional authority and help earn authentic influence. That scenario I heard Terry talk about so many times provided me with a clear understanding of the difference between getting results through the force of positional authority and what can be accomplished when a humble leader paints a picture showing why taking a specific approach matters in the big picture.
I first heard Terry tell that story when my son was around six years old. Had I understood his extremely Driven behavioral style then, the decade or so that followed would have been a bit smoother. Even without all I know today about the DISC Model of Human Behavior, I did all I could to apply my own version of Terry’s approach. Rather than constantly shouting about threats of what Matt could expect for not complying with what Cindy and I expected from him, I occasionally found opportunities to weave in examples of the positive outcomes he could earn when he was willing to keep his nose clean. Make no mistake, he still needed plenty of, let’s call it, firm guidance. The biggest difference, though, was that when we were able to connect with him on why doing as we asked yielded a more desirable outcome, there were actually a few times where he stayed in line whether we were watching over his shoulder or not. While those weren’t as frequent as we would have liked, every single one helped - especially as business travel required me to be away from home more.
Around the same time that I was doing everything I could think of to keep Matt from terrorizing every teacher he had or tearing our house down, I was learning the ropes in my first role where I’d need support from the folks around me to achieve the results necessary to keep my job. In that role, and in every role I held in the decade that followed, any success I hoped to achieve depended on getting dozens of other team members involved. In many cases, that involvement conflicted with what their immediate supervisors wanted them to do. I was able to build reasonable working relationships with most of those supervisors by showing that I was as interested in their goals as I was in achieving the tasks assigned to me. Approaching them with humility served as a counter to positional authority, and it’s a good thing because my position carried no authority whatsoever with them. In the cases where I couldn’t reach terms with a supervisor, I did what I could to engage with their team members directly while minimizing any potential disruption in productivity - but that also usually required getting at least some support from that supervisor’s manager. Although that still wasn’t me flexing any positional authority, it never yielded the kind of results we saw from genuine collaboration.
As I moved from implementing a Lean Manufacturing initiative to overseeing our site’s behavior-based safety process and supporting other facilities across North America, exemplifying humility helped me build influence with the team members I interacted with and depended on for support, outshining the fleeting power even perceived positional authority would have offered. Just like I couldn’t enforce rules with Matt while I was in another state, there was no way I could stand over everyone I worked with through that behavior-based safety process, locally or at a distance, to make sure they followed through on the training I provided. And any support I needed from a location’s management team, be that in my home facility or any that I traveled to, was solely based on me being humble enough to ask for it and to have enough confidence in the impact I believed our work could make for them to commit. The confidence-humility balance is tricky so let’s work through that.
The Confidence-Humility Balance
Let’s be clear, positional authority can get results - as long as the individual with that authority is present and willing to crack the proverbial whip. But the authentic influence we build through humble leadership earns a level of discretionary effort that the most demanding chain-of-command never will, especially when we’re not around. Even then, though, humility alone won’t be what yields that influence or the oh-so-necessary results that follow. Few people ever commit to someone who isn’t confident.
Fresh off the manufacturing floor and just a couple of years removed from being a mediocre carpenter, I didn’t have much confidence. Quite honestly, aside from being willing to out work most of my peers, I had very little reason to be confident. I had just accepted a new role after four years with the company, but I was still one of the least senior employees and one of the youngest in the building. To top that off, I had barely graduated high school and only hit college with a stick to that point. The one thing playing in my favor, even though I didn’t understand it at the time, was the fast pace and focus on each task at hand that I put into everything I did. Anything I did then that remotely displayed humility was mostly because of a lack of self-confidence. Most of the bumps I experienced in the year I worked to roll out that Lean Manufacturing initiative was due to the people I needed engagement from being reluctant to change what they had always done. Looking back, I can’t really blame them; I’m not sure I would have taken that version of me all too seriously.
As I transitioned to being the behavior-based safety process facilitator, I became more stable in performing most of the tasks I was responsible for and I felt like I had more support - at least from folks like Terry, Kevin, and Rod. I still worked as hard as I knew how and I was developing the skills I’d need to be successful in the role without having any real positional authority to demand participation or compliance. I quickly became comfortable enough to deal with just about anything in my home facility, but it was a completely different story the first few times I met with corporate executives or was expected to report audit findings to another location’s management team. Over time, my confidence in even those situations grew. I suppose the fact that our corporate safety director selected me for the role and was footing the bill for my travel finally sunk in enough for me to realize that I could actually offer value through what I shared at each location. Still, with little formal education and no fancy title, the confidence-humility balance was absolutely critical if I wanted to build lasting relationships and get results long term.
Fast-forward to starting our business, I often battled feeling inadequate for the same reasons: I still hadn’t finished that stupid college degree despite achieving solid results in every position I had held to that point. As we looked at turning relationships into measurable leadership growth, I referenced Chris Rollins inviting me and Cindy to contribute a chapter to a collaborative book he was putting together on applying the DISC Model of Human Behavior in the workplace. That was nearly four years into our business but served as a critical moment in solidifying the confidence I’d need to play a role in truly driving organizational transformation for any team we worked with. While everyone else Chris invited to participate in that project appeared more qualified, I didn’t see a single one of them deliver any more value than we did. Seeing Chris count on me for input along the way, much like I’ve mentioned Mark Cole doing occasionally since, showed me that I did indeed have something to offer in this space too.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I’ll emphasize once more how important the confidence-humility balance always is. Even with the highest level of positional authority, balancing confidence with humility earns discretionary effort we’ll never see from a carrot or a stick. And without positional authority, humility that’s not backed by confidence yields little buy-in. The most effective leaders I’ve had the chance to learn from have been the ones who have mastered that balance. They’ve also been the ones who have led organizational transformation.
Humility’s Role in Organizational Transformation
When we can pair humility with confidence, regardless of our level of positional authority in any given situation, we have the opportunity to create authentic, impactful relationships. Those relationships are the ones where we can expect to see a measurable return on investment through the increased discretionary effort I’ve been referring to here and so much of What’s KILLING Your Profitability?...
Cindy and I are frequently asked for guidance on empowering team members so they take more initiative in their roles and achieve measurable outcomes. As we worked through the role developing others plays as a path to leadership, I shared how the mentorship culture I was privy to in manufacturing for so many years resulted in an entire team of volunteers from various roles throughout the facility having a hand in our location being recognized as one of less than fifty worksites in Virginia worthy of an OSHA Voluntary Protection Program Star flag. That didn’t happen because we demanded that those team members take on extra work in their respective departments, and it wasn’t solely based on me and Kevin working our butts off (although we did work our butts off in the process). Each of them pitched in because they saw what we were willing to do, they knew how much we valued their support, and they understood that we trusted them to make a tremendous impact in the tasks they volunteered to help with.
Following Kevin’s example, that was yet another situation where I worked to display confidence in all that I did while being humble enough to ask for and to allow those team members to carry some of the load. Like I mentioned in quoting Harry Truman earlier, “It is amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit.” The support Kevin and I were blessed with was a direct result of empowering a team of amazing people, people we had earned discretionary effort from by balancing a high level of confidence in the work we were doing with the humility necessary to ask each of them to chip in - then trusting them to follow through. The humility to trust them when the stakes were high was key to each of them taking initiative to get the necessary results. Had we nitpicked and scrutinized their efforts every step of the way, they wouldn’t have felt very empowered and they likely wouldn’t have taken so much initiative!
On a much wider scale, I’ve seen John Maxwell and Mark Cole take a similar approach in leading organizational transformation, both within Maxwell Leadership as well as with large organizations and even entire countries around the world. When that model is followed consistently over time, we’ve got a shot at creating a legacy of humble leadership through everyone we touch so let’s tie it all together with that.
Creating a Legacy of Humble Leadership
In wrapping up our look at fostering a mentorship culture, I shared how simple I believe creating a leadership legacy can truly be; it’s not at all out of reach when we focus on the impact we can have on those around us rather than how we may be remembered because of it. That’s where humility comes into play. I’ll emphasize it once more just to make sure we’re still on the same page: Humility isn’t thinking less of ourselves; it’s thinking of ourselves less.
I’ve studied John Maxwell for more than twenty-five years and Mark Cole for over a decade. In that time, I’ve been in arenas where John spoke to over fifteen thousand people and I’ve been in small groups where he’s talked with just a few hundred. I’m not sure how many books he’s written in that time, at least a few dozen, but he’s sold close to 50 million copies. While Mark worked to avoid much of the spotlight through the first fifteen years as John’s CEO, aside from agreeing to write the foreword to my first book and serve as the closing keynote speaker for a few of our events locally, his work has still touched hundreds of thousands of people around the world through how he’s supported John. They’ve each done this with a constant spirit of humility. As much as I’ve heard John share the powerful quotes he’s known for, like “Everything rises and falls on leadership” and “Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less,” I’ve heard him tell his audiences, “My name is John and I’m your friend.” While I haven’t had the proximity with John to build a close friendship, I can say that I feel his sincerity each time I hear him say it. I have, however, interacted with Mark closely enough in the time I’ve known him to share that he lives by that same statement.
Whether it’s with the now more than fifty thousand people around the globe who have completed some level of certification through Maxwell Leadership, their direct employees in that organization, those of us who have opportunities to interact with either of them directly, or to organizations and countries they serve worldwide, they provide an example of humble leadership that can and will have a lasting legacy. Clearly, everyone they interact with won’t replicate that same humility. The ones who do, though, will make a positive impact on everyone following them.
One of the best compliments Cindy and I get today is when someone we’ve just gotten to know, be that through a large group we’ve spoken for or a smaller group we’ve done training with, tells us that they appreciate us being regular people, people they relate to and feel a connection with. That always warms my heart because that’s exactly what we’ve felt from John and Mark, and that’s what I experienced from each of the men I’ve referenced so often leading up to now who have mentored me over the years. When we think more about the impact we can have through the service we provide those we’re privileged enough to lead than we do about how any of that reflects on us as individuals, we have a real shot at creating a legacy of humble leadership. Before we start a deep dive into how much more we can accomplish by choosing influence over authority, I’ll challenge you to identify one thing you can do daily to model humility.