When I talk to people about humility as a key ingredient of servant leadership, they often see it as a weakness. And yet, when Norman Vincent Peale and I wrote The Power of Ethical Management in 1988, we used this Simple Truth to highlight the idea that people with a healthy self-esteem have a balance of pride sprinkled with a fair amount of humility.

Jim Collins, in his classic book Good to Great, determined that high performing leaders display a powerful mixture of personal humility and professional will. As Collins contends, “They’re ambitious, to be sure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves.”

MAKING COMMON SENSE COMMON PRACTICE

To bring humility into practice, Collins suggests that when things go well, ego-driven leaders look in the mirror and pat themselves on the back. When things go wrong, they look out the window to see who they can blame.

To be a servant leader, take these steps instead:

• When things go well, look out the window and give others the credit.

• When things go poorly, look in the mirror and take full responsibility—a hallmark of a servant leader.

How do you feel about humility now? Not a real weakness, is it? Neither is the fact that I am a raving fan of Jim Collins’s work.