New study on spiritual and life advisors of a Christian university showed that students expressed more satisfaction with justice orientation and interpersonal orientation of advisors who had more respect for the viewpoint of others. Additionally, leaders who considered themselves more likely to respect the viewpoint of others and more willing to learn also considered themselves humbler. The study was published in the Journal of Positive Psychology.
Humility has been a topic of great interest of leadership studies in the past couple of decades. Research has shown that companies that “ascend from ‘good to great’ stock values have CEOs with a paradoxical combination of humility and strong professional will.” In contrast to leaders who are arrogant, conceited and self-centered, humble leaders are down-to-earth, unassuming and willing to admit limits or mistakes.
Humility in leadership has been linked to a style of leadership called servant leadership. Servant leaders “patiently guide, attend to and aid their followers”, while displaying empathy, willingness to listen and help others grow. Current psychological theory of leadership links both humility of leaders and the servant leadership style with better satisfaction of followers.
In order to study the links between humility of leaders, servant leadership style and the satisfaction of followers, Professors Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso and Wade C. Rowett conducted two studies on students at a private U.S. Christian university.
The first study involved 101 Resident and Spiritual life Advisors, students living on campus who were hired by the Resident Life program of the university to work 20 hours per week “providing leadership in university campus housing”. In the study they were considered to be leaders. The sample was majority female (65.3%) and their ages ranged from 18 to 24.
They completed assessments of servant leadership (the Altruistic calling subscale of the Servant Leadership Questionnaire), intellectual humility (the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale) and expressed humility (the Expressed Humility Scale) at multiple timepoints. The goal of this study was to test whether servant leadership and humility are associated.
The second study included 215 students living on campus, who were considered followers of the first group. These students assessed the servant leadership of the leaders (advisors) from the first study and evaluated their performance i.e., satisfaction with their leadership.
The results showed that servant leadership style of the leaders was predicted by the willingness to learn from others, which is one aspect of expressed humility and by the respect for points of view of others, one aspect of intellectual humility. The only aspect of leadership predicting followers’ satisfaction was the respect for others’ viewpoints and it predicted the satisfaction with leader’s justice orientation and with leader’s interpersonal leadership. Students saw advisors who respected points of view of others as more just and more interested in getting to know the students.
The study highlighted an important link between properties of leaders and the satisfaction of their followers. However, the authors note that the results should not be overgeneralized before further study. This research was conducted on the campus of a private Christian university and religious values of participants may have influenced their understandings of the studied concept. Additionally, leadership contexts exist in which humility might not be as relevant or beneficial.
The title of this study is “Humility in novice leaders: links to servant leadership and followers’ satisfaction with leadership”.