Expressed Humility in Organizations: Implications for Performance, Teams, and Leadership

We draw on eight different lab and field samples to delineate the effects of expressed humility on several important organizational outcomes, including performance, satisfaction, learning goal orientation, engagement, and turnover. We first review several literatures to define the construct of expressed humility, discuss its implications in social interactions, and distinguish expressed humility from related constructs. Using five different samples, Study 1 develops and validates an observer-report measure of expressed humility. Study 2 examines the strength of expressed humility predictions of individual performance and contextual performance (i.e., quality of team member contribution) relative to conscientiousness, global self-efficacy, and general mental ability. This study also reveals that with regard to individual performance, expressed humility may compensate for lower general mental ability. Study 3 reports insights from a large field sample that examines the relationship between leader-expressed humility and employee retention as mediated by job satisfaction and employee engagement as mediated by team learning orientation. We conclude with recommendations for future research.

[1]  D. Ferrin,et al.  Trust in leadership: meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[2]  Roy Lubit,et al.  The long-term organizational impact of destructively narcissistic managers , 2002 .

[3]  P. Hom,et al.  A Meta-Analysis of Antecedents and Correlates of Employee Turnover: Update, Moderator Tests, and Research Implications for the Next Millennium , 2000 .

[4]  William A. Kahn.  Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work , 1990 .

[5]  Joshua A. Hicks,et al.  Whatever Happened to "What Might Have Been"? , 2007 .

[6]  Jennifer S. Beer,et al.  Knowing your place: self-perceptions of status in face-to-face groups. , 2006, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  Noel M. Tichy,et al.  The Leadership Engine: How Winning Companies Build Leaders at Every Level , 1997 .

[8]  L S Freedman,et al.  Sample size for studying intermediate endpoints within intervention trails or observational studies. , 1992, American journal of epidemiology.

[9]  Jason A. Colquitt,et al.  From the Editors Publishing Laboratory Research in AMJ: A Question of When, Not If , 2008 .

[10]  I. Steiner.  Group process and productivity , 1972 .

[11]  Nathan J. Hiller,et al.  Conceptualizing executive hubris: the role of (hyper‐)core self‐evaluations in strategic decision‐making , 2005 .

[12]  Toby D. Wall,et al.  The experience of work : a compendium and review of 249 measures and their use , 1983 .

[13]  H. S. Sullivan.  The interpersonal theory of psychiatry , 1953 .

[14]  A. Poropat.  A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. , 2009, Psychological bulletin.

[15]  J. Tangney,et al.  Humility : Theoretical perspectives, empirical findings and directions for future research , 2000 .

[16]  P. Costa,et al.  Normal Personality Assessment in Clinical Practice: The NEO Personality Inventory. , 1992 .

[17]  Jeffrey M. Stanton,et al.  Shorter can Also be Better: The Abridged Job in General Scale , 2004 .

[18]  D. Funder,et al.  Overly positive self-evaluations and personality: negative implications for mental health. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[19]  R. Lennox,et al.  Conventional wisdom on measurement: A structural equation perspective. , 1991 .

[20]  J. Collins,et al.  Level 5 leadership. The triumph of humility and fierce resolve. , 2001, Harvard business review.

[21]  Eean R. Crawford,et al.  JOB ENGAGEMENT: ANTECEDENTS AND EFFECTS ON JOB PERFORMANCE , 2010 .

[22]  Robert Hogan,et al.  What we know about Leadership , 2005 .

[23]  Joshua A. Hicks,et al.  Whatever happened to "What might have been"? Regrets, happiness, and maturity. , 2007, The American psychologist.

[24]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

[25]  W. Mischel,et al.  A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. , 1995, Psychological review.

[26]  F. Schmidt,et al.  General mental ability in the world of work: occupational attainment and job performance. , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[27]  J. Farh,et al.  Employee Learning Orientation, Transformational Leadership, and Employee Creativity: The Mediating Role of Employee Creative Self-Efficacy , 2009 .

[28]  D. Funder,et al.  Comparing the accuracy of personality judgements by the self and knowledgeable others. , 1996, Journal of personality.

[29]  Ronald J. Burke,et al.  Why leaders fail: exploring the darkside , 2006 .

[30]  Robert F. DeVellis,et al.  Scale Development: Theory and Applications. , 1992 .

[31]  Dusya Vera,et al.  Strategic Virtues:: Humility as a Source of Competitive Advantage , 2004 .

[32]  Michael J. Constantino,et al.  How Interpersonal Motives Clarify the Meaning of Interpersonal Behavior: A Revised Circumplex Model , 2006, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[33]  B. Weiner,et al.  Accounts for Success as Determinants of Perceived Arrogance and Modesty , 2000 .

[34]  A. Bakker,et al.  Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: a multi‐sample study , 2004 .

[35]  Sidney Walter Finkelstein,et al.  Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes , 2003 .

[36]  E. Foa,et al.  Societal Structures of the Mind , 1974 .

[37]  C. Dweck,et al.  A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality , 1988 .

[38]  Eric M. Anderman,et al.  The classroom environment and students' reports of avoidance strategies in mathematics: A multimethod study. , 2002 .

[39]  Bradley P. Owens,et al.  MODELING HOW TO GROW: AN INDUCTIVE EXAMINATION OF HUMBLE LEADER BEHAVIORS, CONTINGENCIES, AND OUTCOMES , 2012 .

[40]  J. Kalbfleisch,et al.  A Comparison of Cluster-Specific and Population-Averaged Approaches for Analyzing Correlated Binary Data , 1991 .

[41]  O. John,et al.  Determinants of interjudge agreement on personality traits: the big five domains, observability, evaluativeness, and the unique perspective of the self. , 1993, Journal of personality.

[42]  I. Mcmanus,et al.  Objects look different sizes in the right and left eyes. , 2004, Laterality.

[43]  Robert M. Fulmer,et al.  Growing Your Company's Leaders: How Great Organizations Use Succession Management to Sustain Competitive Advantage , 2004 .

[44]  D. Bowen,et al.  The Management of Organizational Justice , 2007 .

[45]  James C. Anderson,et al.  Predicting the performance of measures in a confirmatory factor analysis with a pretest assessment of their substantive validities. , 1991 .

[46]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health. , 1988, Psychological bulletin.

[47]  George B. Graen,et al.  Role of leadership in the employee withdrawal process. , 1982 .

[48]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Positive psychology. An introduction. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[49]  Elizabeth Chambers,et al.  The War for Talent , 2001 .

[50]  A. Furnham,et al.  Male hubris and female humility?: A cross-cultural study of ratings of self, parental, and sibling multiple intelligence in America, Britain, and Japan , 2001 .

[51]  Terence R. Mitchell,et al.  5 Turnover and Retention Research: A Glance at the Past, a Closer Review of the Present, and a Venture into the Future , 2008 .

[52]  Hettie A. Richardson,et al.  Integrating managerial perceptions and transformational leadership into a work‐unit level model of employee involvement , 2005 .

[53]  J. Meece,et al.  Students' goal orientations and cognitive engagement in classroom activities , 1988 .

[54]  K. Park.  Book Review: Why Smart Executives Fail—And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes, by Sydney Finkelstein, New York: Penguin, 2003 , 2004 .

[55]  Lisa M. Penney,et al.  The downside of goal-focused leadership: the role of personality in subordinate exhaustion. , 2010, The Journal of applied psychology.

[56]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[57]  John Doyle,et al.  Charles Spearman : British Behavioral Scientist , 1863 .

[58]  Eduardo Salas,et al.  Team Effectiveness and Decision Making in Organizations , 1995 .

[59]  P. Costa,et al.  The structure of interpersonal traits: Wiggins's circumplex and the five-factor model. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[60]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  Testing Multilevel Mediation Using Hierarchical Linear Models , 2008 .

[61]  A. Edmondson.  Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams , 1999 .

[62]  J. Dutton,et al.  Positive organizational scholarship : foundations of a new discipline , 2003 .

[63]  Victor Tadros.  What might have been , 2014 .

[64]  Joel Brockner,et al.  Is More Fairness Always Preferred? Self-Esteem Moderates Reactions to Procedural Justice , 2007 .

[65]  Christopher Peterson,et al.  The Values in Action (VIA) Classification of Strengths. , 2006 .

[66]  N. Shainess,et al.  Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind , 1990 .

[67]  J. Boudreau,et al.  The relationship between employee job change and job satisfaction: the honeymoon-hangover effect. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[68]  D. Vandewalle.  Development and Validation of a Work Domain Goal Orientation Instrument , 1997 .

[69]  J. A. Marrone,et al.  A New Look at Humility: Exploring the Humility Concept and Its Role in Socialized Charismatic Leadership , 2010 .

[70]  Grace Ann Rosile,et al.  Enron Spectacles: A Critical Dramaturgical Analysis , 2004 .

[71]  A. Bakker,et al.  The Measurement of Engagement and Burnout: A Two Sample Confirmatory Factor Analytic Approach , 2002 .

[72]  Julie J. Exline,et al.  Perceptions of Humility: A Preliminary Study , 2004 .

[73]  Howard J. Ehrlich,et al.  Reciprocal self-disclosure in a dyad , 1971 .

[74]  P. Costa,et al.  Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[75]  Bradley P. Owens.  Humility in organizational leadership , 2009 .

[76]  David A. Harrison,et al.  Temporal tempering: An event history analysis of the process of voluntary turnover. , 1996 .

[77]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META-ANALYSIS , 1991 .

[78]  C. Dodrill,et al.  Long-term reliability of the Wonderlic Personnel Test. , 1983 .

[79]  L. Miller,et al.  Self-disclosure and liking: a meta-analytic review. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[80]  Erik Dane,et al.  Exploring Intuition and its Role in Managerial Decision Making , 2007 .

[81]  E. E. Jones,et al.  When Self-Presentation is Constrained by the Target's Knowledge: Consistency and Compensation. , 1978 .

[82]  David L. Dotlich,et al.  Why CEOs Fail: The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb to the Top--And How to Manage Them , 2003 .

[83]  J. Means,et al.  Humility as a psychotherapeutic formulation , 1990 .

[84]  J. S. Wiggins,et al.  A psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: The interpersonal domain. , 1979 .

[85]  Robert S. Stawski,et al.  Multilevel Analysis: An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Multilevel Modeling (2nd Edition) , 2013 .

[86]  M. Ashton,et al.  The prediction of Honesty–Humility-related criteria by the HEXACO and Five-Factor Models of personality , 2008 .

[87]  P. Hom.  Employee Turnover , 1994 .

[88]  S. Côté,et al.  Emotional Intelligence, Cognitive Intelligence, and Job Performance , 2006 .

[89]  K. Sutcliffe,et al.  Management team learning orientation and business unit performance. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[90]  R. Bagozzi,et al.  On the nature and direction of relationships between constructs and measures. , 2000, Psychological methods.

[91]  P. Knight,et al.  Humility revisited: Self-esteem, information search, and policy consistency , 1986 .

[92]  S. Zahra,et al.  Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension , 2002 .

[93]  C. Dweck.  Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. Essays in Social Psychology. , 1999 .

[94]  T. Judge,et al.  THE CORE SELF‐EVALUATIONS SCALE: DEVELOPMENT OF A MEASURE , 2003 .

[95]  D. Kipnis,et al.  Does power corrupt? , 1972, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[96]  Don E. Davis,et al.  Humility: Review of measurement strategies and conceptualization as personality judgment , 2010 .

[97]  G. Vaillant.  The wisdom of the ego , 1993 .

[98]  J. Ungerer,et al.  Defense Style and Adjustment in Interpersonal Relationships , 1997 .

[99]  Carole A. Ames.  Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. , 1992 .

[100]  Kevin R. Murphy,et al.  Individual differences and behavior in organizations , 1996 .

[101]  Jeanine M. Grenberg.  Kant and the Ethics of Humility: A Story of Dependence, Corruption and Virtue , 2007 .

[102]  David M. Messick,et al.  On Being Better but not Smarter than Others: The Muhammad Ali Effect , 1989 .

[103]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  Interpersonal Perception: A Social Relations Analysis , 1988 .

[104]  S. Gosling,et al.  A room with a cue: personality judgments based on offices and bedrooms. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[105]  Fred O. Walumbwa,et al.  Leadership: current theories, research, and future directions. , 2009, Annual review of psychology.

[106]  Douglas N. Jackson,et al.  Reliability of the Jackson Personality Inventory , 1977 .

[107]  P. Costa,et al.  A contemplated revision of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory , 2004 .

[108]  C. Brotheridge,et al.  Bringing humility to leadership: Antecedents and consequences of leader humility , 2005 .

[109]  R. Roberts,et al.  Humility and epistemic goods , 2003 .

[110]  Gerald R. Ferris,et al.  Role of leadership in the employee withdrawal process: A constructive replication. , 1985 .

[111]  B. Avolio,et al.  Impact of Transformational Leadership on Follower Development and Performance: A Field Experiment , 2002 .