Developing Humility in Leadership

Research on humility and intellectual humility (IH) has exploded in recent years. Although humility got off to a slow start compared to research on other virtues, recent developments in the measurement of both humility and IH have set the stage for the emergence of a vibrant applied research program on how humility can improve our lives and how we relate to one another. Leadership may be an especially important context to investigate humility. Leaders are entrusted with power to affect the lives of those under their influence, and integrity in this role requires the ability to balance one’s own self-interested goals with the needs of others. The current project brings together an interdisciplinary team to explore the role of humility in five applied leadership contexts: business leaders, religious leaders, college student leaders, educational leaders, and humanitarian aid leaders. The purpose of the project is to provide scientific evidence that will set the stage for the development and dissemination of interventions to promote humility in leaders. In so doing, this project will also demonstrate some examples of what such interventions might entail. By applying the scientific method to discovering new spiritual information, this project will be a direct application of Sir John Templeton’s vision that humility and open-mindedness provide the surest path to progress. This project will result in at least ten submissions to academic journals, two submissions to popular magazines, ten presentations at academic conferences, a manualized intervention, a Guidelines Document that integrates findings across studies to inform future humility interventions, and a book written for general audiences. If successful, this project will provide strong scientific evidence regarding the importance of humility for leaders as well as an empirical basis for developing such interventions through identification of key mechanisms for targeting and promoting changes in humility.