You Can't Be a Successful Leader Until You've Mastered This

There’s a secret to leadership that separates great leaders from the rest.

It’s not what most people think, and yet once you know it, you’ll never look back.

In today's blog, we’ll dive into a little-known leadership goldmine that can elevate your game to new heights.

You can’t master leadership until you master this.

Before we jump in, let me introduce myself.

I’m Zach White, and I’ve been a leader in the social sector for almost 15 years.

When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing.

So, I decided to become a student of leadership.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes over the last 15 years of that journey, but I’ve managed to learn some really valuable lessons along the way that have really changed the game for me.

The world needs great leaders.

You can sit around hoping somebody will take on that responsibility, or YOU can take up that responsibility yourself.

What if YOU are the leader the world desperately needs?

That’s why I started this leadership community.

I want to provide you with all the support you need to develop your full leadership potential and give you the motivation and encouragement you need to fight the good fight, day in, day out.

Okay, let’s dive into today’s content.

So, what is this secret to leadership that separates great leaders from the rest?

What is this little-known leadership goldmine that can elevate your game to new heights?

I’m going to tell you, you ready?

Humility.

Humility is the secret weapon to your leadership potential.

I’m convinced that you can’t call yourself a leader if you don’t have humility.

Feel free to call yourself a dictator, a boss, a manager, a supervisor, a coach, but not a leader.

You can’t truly LEAD people without humility.

The depth of your humility will determine the depth of your leadership.

Let me repeat that.

The depth of your humility will determine the depth of your leadership.

The greater your humility, the higher your leadership potential is.

Now, before we go any further, let’s break down what humility is at its core.

I love C.S. Lewis' definition of humility, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.”

In other words, humility is not about putting yourself down, having low self-esteem, or a lack of confidence.

Humility means that you aren’t so fixated on yourself that you can see the wisdom and skill in others.

Humility means you have an openness to learning from others.

Humility means having respect for other people and thinking more about them than yourself.

That’s humility.

Now, let’s talk about what humility does for your leadership.

I’m going to give you five crucial reasons why humility is unbelievably powerful and why it’s going to revolutionize the way you think about leadership.

#1: Humility Promotes Learning

If you lead with pride, then you have a very limited pool of people to learn from.

You’re only going to learn from people who are ahead of you in some area that you respect.

That can work for a while, but as things grow, your available mentors get smaller and smaller, and you learn less and less.

Not to mention, the educational diet you’ve limited yourself to will be really anemic.

The vibrancy of your leadership will be severely limited, and you’re ceiling will be very low.

On the flip side, if you have humility, then you can learn from anyone.

It doesn’t matter who they are, what they do, where they are in an organizational chart, or what they have or have not accomplished.

If you have humility, then you see the potential to learn or gain wisdom from anyone.

That is so powerful.

Your educational diet will be rich and eclectic. You’ll be absorbing new and fresh ideas from the ground up, leading with vibrancy, and your ceiling will be practically limitless.

All because you have humility.

Okay, here’s the second point.

#2 Humility Removes Pressure

Oftentimes, when you’re the leader, people assume that you have all the answers.

Many leaders feel this pressure to measure up to that impossible standard.

Maybe you often think to yourself, “Man, if I don’t have the answer, then how could they respect me enough to lead?”

Let me tell you something.

That is a big fat lie.

Please soak this in.

People will not follow your leadership because you have all the answers.

People will follow your leadership because they TRUST you.

There’s a big difference there.

Leadership is not built on how much you know, but on how well people trust you.

You don’t need all the answers.

In fact, if you can’t admit that you don’t have all the answers, I’m not sure how you’ll ever be able to lead effectively.

Here’s a phrase I say a lot: “To be honest, I don’t know. But I can find out.”

Then, follow through, go find out. Do your research. Hunt down an answer.

That builds trust.

And you know what else?

It removes pressure.

I don’t need to have all the answers to be a leader.

I just need humility.

Okay, here’s the next one.

#3 Humility Promotes Teamwork

When you, as the leader, are actively pulling from the wisdom and knowledge of others, and you’re not pretending to have all the answers, you get an interesting and vital byproduct… Teamwork.

A humble leader is well aware that the sum of a team working collaboratively is much better than the sum of a team working individually.

You may have read about the interesting phenomenon with draft horses.

A single draft horse can haul up to 8,000 pounds.

Now, you’d imagine that two draft horses could haul up to 16,000 pounds (twice as much).

But that’s not the case.

Two of these horses can actually move up to 24,000 pounds—three times the weight one can haul.

When the horses are actually trained together, their pulling capacity can increase up to 32,000 pounds—four times the weight either could have moved alone.

That’s the power of collaboration.

It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s real.

Any seasoned leader worth their salt knows that collaboration multiplies team output, and collaboration can’t be realized until humility is fully embodied.

If each team member thinks they can do it on their own, that they don’t need the team, that they have all the answers… It’s not going to work.

You’ve got to start with humility.

The moment you humble your team is the moment they can finally realize their full potential.

That all starts with you as the leader.

Okay, here’s the next point.

#4 Humility Makes You More Approachable

One of the unfortunate realities for a leader is that your team can feel uncomfortable around you.

Your team may not always feel like they can relax when you’re around.

Or worse, they may not feel like you’re approachable, easy to talk to, or safe to be fully honest with.

Now, some leaders bring this on themselves with how they act.

They’re demanding, inconsistent, they react too strongly, they lead with fear, and their team feels like they’re walking on eggshells.

If you’re acting that way as a leader, then this issue is 100% self-induced, and you probably don’t see the value in being approachable as a leader.

That’s a whole other conversation.

Good leaders know the importance of being approachable.

However, even the healthiest of leaders can struggle to be approachable.

It can feel like swimming upstream.

Let me tell you something.

Humility is the key.

It really is.

There are all sorts of concerns that can develop between a team member and a leader.

The fear of failure, the fear of judgment, the fear of not being enough, the fear of sounding stupid…

Not to mention, the leader typically holds a certain degree of authority or control over the team member.

That can create discomfort.

Humility has a way of cutting through them all and reminding your team that you are all on the same level and that you value and respect what they have to say.

This makes your team feel safe.

This makes you approachable as a leader.

Alright, here’s the final point.

#5 Humility Empowers The Next Generation

The most outstanding leaders are the leaders who empower the next generation.

These leaders not only lead well in their lifetime but also recognize that their legacy can continue (and even improve) after they’re gone.

These leaders know how to release leadership authority to the next generation.

These leaders learned how not only to lead but also to extend leadership authority to others.

They create an environment where leadership roots grow down within the organization or within the infrastructure of what they lead.

The result is that the leadership continues and blossoms into something that stands the test of time.

In other words, they leave a legacy.

The only way to pull this off is with humility.

If a leader believes they are the only one with the skills, abilities, or knowledge to lead, they will ensure the eventual failure of what they're leading.

That’s pride, and it’s a death sentence.

A leader can certainly have a solid run, maybe even last a lifetime, but they will not see their legacy survive through multiple generations.

You can’t empower other leaders, release leadership, and ultimately leave a lasting legacy without humility.

It’s at the core of it all.

Let’s review.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

Humility promotes learning, removes pressure, promotes teamwork, makes you more approachable, and empowers the next generation.

You can’t be a truly great leader until you embody true humility.

Hey, thank you for spending this time with me.

Keep fighting the good fight.

I’ll see you again real soon.