Leadership by Humility

It was a lunchtime discussion. I shared how I try to teach people in my team or my organisation. I am terrible at motivating people by face to face discussions, although I have found that counselling sessions have been quite revealing. I am one who like to see people make the leap of capability on their own.

The method I wanted to share is that I practice leadership by humility. It starts with the belief that we all hire smart people to work with us. Smart people are motivated by self assessment of their own capability, and I found smart people to make a leap of capability when they conciously know that they have limitations or have made mistakes. Smart people do not like to be told what to do, or fail to reach their goals. The only way to coach smart people is to show them humility and motivate them to reach for their own the next level. Humility means accepting that you may not be as good as you are, and understanding and seeking the way to overcome that.

I would like to ask all of you, who have teams to lead or is in a team - tell those who work for you something new everyday, and learn something from them. Humility could work both ways.

I am still learning how to do this well.