Can a manager be humble?  Well, not only can they, but they should be. At least that’s what I tried to explain in an article published in the  Journal of Business Ethics , titled “ Humility in Management” ( here ) .  Humility doesn’t have a good reputation in the business world;  it seems that a humble manager must be timid, shy, somewhat cowardly, someone who shrinks back in front of others, who doesn’t know how to make decisions… a bad leader, in short. But let’s look at it another way.

Humility leads us to know ourselves as we truly are  (“humility is walking in truth,” said Saint Teresa of Ávila).  It prevents us from deceiving ourselves by highlighting our abilities and achievements, or by dwelling on our shortcomings.  It helps us value others for who they are, without belittling or praising them, because we don’t approach relationships as a competition that feeds our ego.  It opens us to the opinions of others, which helps us to know ourselves better.  Consider the behavior of a humble manager within a team: how they listen to others (who must have something valuable to say, right?), how they weigh their opinions, how they encourage them to contribute, how they delegate, how they admit their own mistakes and take responsibility for their team’s errors, how they acknowledge their team’s achievements when successes are achieved…

Yes,  a humble manager will likely be a good manager . Of course, the ways in which this manifests itself are highly personal, so, for example, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that a humble manager will have higher profits; this may or may not be true, and the professional, human, and moral quality of a manager doesn’t depend on the bottom line. Nor on the opinions of others.

In this article, I offer some ideas for  developing humility.  And I arrive at a conclusion that has always seemed important to me when discussing virtues:  only those who dare to put them into practice will understand why they are good  for themselves, for others, for the company, and for society. As long as one continues to look at stock market performance as a measure of success, or as long as one continues to think that how others value them is the most important thing for their career, it will be harder for them to understand why they must be humble. At best, they will try to appear humble… and failure is guaranteed.

Antonio Argandoña

Source:  Blog on Economics, Ethics and CSR

For more information, you can  download here  the document by  Antonio Argandoña  entitled ” Reputation and Humility in Business Management”