The Humble, Narcissistic Leader
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Summary
Narcissism and Humility: How do they go hand-in-hand? In this episode, Dr. Brad Owens and his team explore the relationship between narcissism and humility in leadership, and how the two can coexist.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Research, not to mention anecdotal observation, shows that a lot of narcissists end up in
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That's because the qualities narcissism enlarges into extremes like confidence, assertiveness,
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Unfortunately, the same qualities of narcissism that help an individual obtain a leadership
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position can prevent them from being effective in that position and from holding onto it.
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My guest's research has uncovered what can be a solution to this dilemma, the timeless
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He's a professor of business ethics, and we begin our conversation today by digging into
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the fact that studies done on the effect of narcissism on leadership have been inconsistent,
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with some showing to have a positive effect and others a negative one.
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Brad explains that the reason these studies may have been inconclusive is that while narcissism
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can get someone into a leadership role, it then gets in the way of them succeeding in
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We then turn to the idea that cultivating humility can temper the negative effects of narcissism,
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the three aspects of humility every leader, whether narcissistic or not, should cultivate.
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We then discuss whether there are situations where you do want to be more narcissistic than
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humble, what a humble, narcissistic leader looks like, and how Steve Jobs and George Washington
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serve as examples of this combination of qualities.
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After the show's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash humble narcissist.
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So you are a professor of business ethics, and one of your areas of focus with your research
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is the intersection of humility and narcissism in leadership.
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Well, one of the reasons my colleagues, Angela Wallace, David Walden, and I decided to do this
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research is that the research on leader narcissism has actually been really inconclusive.
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Narcissism is generally unpleasant and off-putting.
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In our personal relationships, it almost always leads to poor outcomes.
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But in organizational leadership, it's less clear.
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That's a question that's been hotly debated, and the data hasn't provided a lot of clarity.
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Why is narcissism effective for leadership in some instances and ineffective in others?
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And when you have these wide swings, usually there's another piece to the puzzle that isn't
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being measured, which is influencing these relationships.
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Third variable or moderator that's not being accounted for, that's impacting things.
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And our team wondered if examining the impact of humility might explain these inconsistent
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So adding clarity to this leader narcissism literature is one reason we decided to do
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But a deeper reason that may hit closer to home that's a bit more personal is the pairing
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of humility and narcissism represents the classic internal battle that not just leaders,
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Kind of like the two wolves fighting within each of us from the Native American tale.
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And so Immanuel Kant calls self-worship, which is closely tied to narcissism, the root of
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Religious thinkers consider excessive pride as it relates to narcissism to also be a universal
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So in contrast, humility has been held up as a foundational virtue that enables all the
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It's been called the mother virtue that gives life to the other virtues.
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So because humility entails seeking value beyond the self, it directly counteracts Kant's idea
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of the root of all vice, which is self-worship.
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So if there's one message that's consistently been given by past philosophers, historians,
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and luminaries, it's that humans get trapped in hubris, narcissism, overconfidence, excessive
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And at the heart of most religions and many secular efforts like moral philosophy that seek to encourage
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virtue and moral character, humility can be found as a core principle.
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And so we hope to provide insight about this internal battle we face between narcissism and
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And all good research, I believe, also entails some me-search where you look inside and you
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kind of see how this research can apply and inform, you know, your own challenges, state
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And so we hope that this research also could provide some of that insight as we all seek
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to grapple with this humility and narcissism within each of us.
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You said earlier, narcissism, the research on leadership and narcissism and humility, it's
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And as you mentioned, there's, we typically associate narcissism with negative attributes.
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But you also in your research have highlighted there's, you know, narcissism is actually a
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There's some, you know, positive things about it as well.
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So for research purposes, like how are you defining narcissism?
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Because I think a lot of times in the popular culture, we throw that word around a lot and it
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doesn't mean the same thing as a psychologist or a researcher means it.
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There's a lot of fuzziness around the word narcissism.
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In our research, we use the definition from Ames, Rose, and Anderson, and they suggest
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narcissism as a complex of characteristics that entails things like an excessively self-centered
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perspective, self-absorption, extreme confidence, or sense of superiority.
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It also can entail a strong drive to lead and to succeed, like very, very strong ambition.
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And so I think it's important to make it clear that what we're talking about in our research
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It's a less severe form of narcissism, which is probably more malleable.
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It grows or shrinks based on our experiences and choices.
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And so we all need some kind of ego-based tendencies, a measure of self-confidence, self-esteem, drive
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But the question is how much and how do we know when they've gotten out of balance?
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Narcissism represents this condition where those self-based tendencies have kind of gone
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And so we felt that humility, which is cast as a virtue, that's the way people have talked
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about it, that guards against extremes, humility may help put the brakes on some of these ego-based
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tendencies and prevent them from going to extreme.
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To get to your question about positive and negative outcomes, I'd say that normally narcissism
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leads to poor outcomes, professionally and relationally.
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And so, again, represents those healthy self-preservation and ego-based tendencies that have kind of gone
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But there have been some scholars who've suggested that narcissists can sometimes produce great
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There can be positive outcomes in some situations.
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Are there any examples from your research of CEOs that were, you know, we could describe
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as narcissists who had a positive impact on their organization?
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So the CEO that we kind of used when we started this research was Steve Jobs.
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And so Steve Jobs' first kind of stint as the head of Apple, he was definitely very talented,
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very innovative, intelligent, but he also was really toxic, really hard to work with, very
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And he was doing a lot of things that caused individuals to want to leave Apple.
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And so he eventually was ousted and had nothing to do with Apple for, I believe it was 11 years.
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And then he was invited back and he still was Steve Jobs.
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He still had a high level of narcissism, but that narcissism seemed to be tempered by a measure
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Steve Jobs called his first firing from Apple, quote, bad tasting medicine that the patient
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He was more apt to listen to other people's ideas and to give credit to the really talented
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people that were making Apple into the most valuable company in the world at the time.
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And so to us, that's an example of someone who certainly was not able to shed all their
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narcissism, but by combining it with a measure of humility, they were able to produce a lot
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of value and maybe reduce a lot of the toxicity of some of their narcissistic tendencies.
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So it sounds like people who are narcissists, they tend to end up being leaders because they've
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got that, they got a lot of self-confidence, that drive to lead, they're ambitious, etc.
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But those things that got them in positions of leadership can sometimes bite them in the
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The research is pretty clear that narcissism is positively related to leadership emergence.
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And those who put themselves on a path to lead in large organizations usually feel that they're
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And so first impressions of narcissists can be quite positive.
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They initially can seem quite charming, charismatic, confident, and leader-like.
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However, over time, sometimes this charm can wear off.
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The true colors are shown and people can become disillusioned as they see more clearly that the charm
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or the charisma is actually more motivated by self-aggrandizement or desire for praise.
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But as these leaders gain power and success accumulates, these self-beliefs are reinforced.
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However, there are some who do wake up to an awareness of their kind of ballooning narcissism.
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There's a book by, I think, Michael Goldman that says,
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And I read a Harvard Business Review article about the twice-born leader.
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You know, these ones that wake up and they realize that the very characteristics that got them into
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leadership positions are the very characteristics that are causing them to lose their following,
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lose trust with people, and burn bridges unless they're tempered.
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And we believe at least some of the answer is humility to help temper, again,
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some of the more toxic aspects of narcissism, help them better leverage the more productive
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Well, and as you highlight in your research, thanks to scandals in the world of business
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and government, I'm thinking like Enron was a big one that drove, started the driving,
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particularly in popular business books and in research, there's been a call amongst leadership
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But like narcissism, like humility is also a fuzzy word, a fuzzy concept.
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So when you're doing your research about humility, what do you mean by humility?
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So we view humility in three dimensions, self-awareness, teachability, and an appreciation of others'
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In other words, humility influences how we see ourselves more accurately, others more
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appreciatively, and new information more openly.
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And so these three dimensions were the result of compiling and synthesizing a large literature
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from the past, both philosophical and psychological, and also from our interviews with organizational
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leaders where we interviewed CEOs, mid-level managers, army officers, and asked them, you
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Can you tell us stories about episodes where a leader showed humility and kind of synthesizing
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all that data to boil down to these three dimensions?
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So it's self-awareness, teachability, and appreciation of other strengths and contributions.
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Like what are some leaders that exemplify these three?
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Or maybe one of, I mean, oh, here's a question.
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Do you need all three to be humble or can you have like one or two?
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So if someone is becoming more self-aware, kind of the limits that they may have, things
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that they don't yet know, then they're more likely to be teachable or open to new ideas
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So I think one of the best ways to illustrate what does humility look like, I'm remembering
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We interviewed some leaders right after the housing crisis, the kind of the mortgage meltdown.
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We went into mortgage banking companies and we interviewed those leaders.
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This was an industry that you could say had been humbled.
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And in the wake of all this, there was a leader that shared the story that they were in a board
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They were trying to figure out how to help their organization survive.
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And this leader said, look, no, I've been a hard charging kind of a leader barking orders,
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We need to see from everybody's eyes in order to figure this out.
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And so I need you to tell me to shut up once in a while and just let us hash out ideas and
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let everybody give their perspectives because I'm just not good at that.
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So I give you all permission to interrupt me and to tell me to just be quiet and let us
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So that was an example of a leader who showed self-awareness, where they saw something that
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they were weak at, where they showed teachability and asking for everybody's ideas and validating
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everybody's perspectives and saying, we need everybody to weigh in here in order to figure
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Other examples that we compiled through these interviews were admitting when you're wrong,
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owning bouts of overconfidence, owning up to mistakes, asking for honest and even brutal
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feedback, being open to suggestions, giving credit where credit's due, and even being generous
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in crediting your people for success, even when you had a hand in it.
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So again, these examples kind of reflect those three dimensions I just talked about.
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But it sounds like self-awareness is sort of like the first step, like a narcissistic leader
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has to be aware that they are a narcissist and they need more humility.
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And so for narcissistic leaders, how does that happen usually?
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Do they have to get fired and oust from the company like Steve Jobs?
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Or can there be more subtle ways to self-awareness?
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And in these interviews, many leaders would talk about their own journeys in overcoming
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That there was many who, when they first got in their leadership role, they felt like kind
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of a saucy youngster who had to prove themselves.
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And they made a lot of mistakes and tried to project this kind of omniscient or all-wise
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posture almost, but then as they showed their fallibility and as that type of leadership
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just wasn't working for them, some of them just kind of woke up to the fact that this
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is not working, it's hurting my relationships, it's making me less effective.
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And then they searched for exemplars or other ways of leading that often led to things like
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So that's one path people take to overcome narcissism or make adjustments in their leadership.
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Another path is kind of like Steve Jobs, some significant reversal happened, whether it was
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And that caused them to kind of be jolted from their frame of mind and their way of leading.
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And that helped them to, again, try and seek to make changes.
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We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.
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Well, and being a humble leader is a tricky thing because on the one hand, people want
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a humble leader, as research shows, but they also want a leader that's competent and confident.
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So are there instances where trying to be humble can actually backfire and make the people
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Because you're admitting your faults, like, I'm just a dumb, I know nothing.
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And they're like, okay, this is actually, we're doomed.
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You know, there are instances, I believe, when humility is not effective for leadership.
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We've done some research in the military and interviewing West Point trained military officers
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who've been deployed a few times, and we ask them, when is humility less effective?
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And it surprised us how few those circumstances were, actually.
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There are times when, based on the interviews we've done, where time is very short.
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And survival is really what the organization or your group of soldiers needs to focus on.
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And to initiate humility in a leadership process often takes time.
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And so before a mission, when you're preparing for it, and then after a mission in a military
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context, as you're doing your action review, humility is a great idea.
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But when the bullets are flying, that's the time when you need to do everything as a leader
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to create order out of chaos, to give directives, to shout and even swear and do everything to
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get your soldiers over the hill in order to save their lives.
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And so there's a lot of dramatized leadership scenarios where, you know, in the movies and
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shows where humility just would not be a good idea.
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But these military officers were huge advocates of humility and how it was needed, that they
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needed to figure out a way to teach the cadets, the younger soldiers and leaders, how to embrace
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more humility, lessons that they'd learned through hard experience.
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And so actually in the last few months, the army changed their core leadership doctrine to
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include humility as a fundamental characteristic that they want in military leadership.
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And so they're, they're looking for something to kind of counterbalance the more, uh, you
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could say agentic top-down authoritative leadership and, and humility they see is, is part of the
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So sum up most times you want to be humble, but when there's a crisis going on, so if there's
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lives on the line, or if there's a business, you're in a business and there's like a crisis
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Like that's when you'd want a more, I don't know, assertive narcissistic leader, not, not
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the humility, but most time the default should be humility.
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The, so the self-awareness being teachable, and that means just that like that one example
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you gave, that means the leaders say, going to the people that he leads and saying, teach
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Like, how do you, like, what does that look like without it being like condescending or,
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you know, it's, you know, people take it the wrong way.
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So I think that when the leader actually does have more experience than everyone else and
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when the leader has been, has training that everyone else doesn't have, and it's obvious
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that that leader's perspective is probably the most valuable, then I think that people kind
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of sense that, and, and for the leader to be overtly or overly teachable in that moment,
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people might feel that that's kind of just wasting time.
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But in many scenarios, there is quite a bit of uncertainty and they're not, we're dealing
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with probabilities again, rather than, than certainties.
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And I think in, in those situations, then it makes a lot of sense for a leader to admit
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and say, look, I have some ideas about what, what may happen and, and, and which way we
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should go, but let's, let's all of us kind of consider this and, and, and put it together.
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There was one example that was shared from, again, these West Point leader interviews where
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The leader at the base where he was at said, we've just received intel that this base is
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going to be attacked from two different angles, and it's going to involve suicide attacks as
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The leader basically gave it to him and said, you're, you just got out of West Point.
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Why don't you go ahead and put the plan together to, you know, save the base tomorrow.
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And so this leader said, you know, I could have kind of touted my West Point training and
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pretended that I knew exactly what to do, but he, instead he brought everyone in the
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room and he said, look, you know, this base, you know, the geography around it, you know,
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We need everyone to put their heads together, to put together a strategy that's going to make
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it most likely for us to, you know, save as many lives as possible and to succeed tomorrow.
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He was very open to everyone's ideas and feedback, and they cobbled together last minute a defensive
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And he credits it to that position he took, you know, in the moment he was tempted.
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To, to not be teachable, but he said that because he was teachable and got everybody's
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input and perspective, that it was the resounding success that it couldn't have been otherwise.
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Well, I was going to say in what your research has shown too, is that, that the quality of
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teachability from a leader, it rubs off, it goes like it rubs off on the people they lead.
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Like when people see that, oh, this guy who's, you know, supposedly made it, he's continuing
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Maybe I should do that too, which that's great for the organization.
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If everyone's continually learning and adapting.
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Humility is like many leadership characteristics.
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When a leader sends the signals, what's appropriate in an otherwise ambiguous social context,
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what the leader does legitimizes that behavior.
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And so if a leader is narcissistic, it legitimizes narcissism in an organization.
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But if they're humble, then others feel free to, to be more open to teaching and development
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rather than status seeking or hiding what they don't know.
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And so this leader contagion effect, I think is we, we found it empirically, both in the
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field and in experimental studies, it can be very powerful.
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So leaders understanding that how they choose to lead will influence and cascade down the
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And so when we asked these CEOs and other leaders, like, what does humility do psychologically
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The answer was that it, it legitimizes the followers own developmental journeys.
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And that liberates them from what's called evaluation apprehension.
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There's all kinds of positive, productive benefits when the leader chooses to trade a little
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bit of their status, a little bit of their power in order to legitimize learning and development
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Well, that third aspect of humility is recognizing the contributions of those you lead or those
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And I think a lot of leaders, they read those in like the airport, you know, business
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books that they read, they pick up the story like, oh yeah, I need to give praise.
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And so they, you know, give praise, but that can backfire too, because people can, they can
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I think that there is an art to giving praise in a way that it'll be authentic and sincere
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It's one of the most powerful things a leader can do is to sincerely praise the people that
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And I think that two things to remember is that the, the praise has to be specific, very
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general praise can communicate this idea that the leader just doesn't really know what I
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So I think it has to be specific and then related to that has to be accurate.
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It can really backfire if you praise someone for doing something that they didn't, they didn't
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And, and it is true that someone may receive praise and kind of think, am I really adding
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We do have both positive and negative blind spots.
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And I think a good leader is one tries to help everyone understand more fully to own and
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to leverage the strengths that they have, that they may themselves not fully see.
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But when employees hear specific and accurate feedback, they feel known and understood and
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So a person who's narcissistic, they tend to emerge as leaders because those attributes
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of narcissism that you're talking about help people, like they're confident, they're assertive,
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Eventually that can backfire if they don't temper it with humility.
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So what does like a humble narcissistic leader look like?
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So I think a humble narcissistic leader, if you, if you kind of see a continuum of kind of
00:25:12.860
these self-based or kind of ego based tendencies, and in some degree, I think I've mentioned that
00:25:20.200
they are healthy, self-esteem, self-confidence, some measure of self-interest.
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A humble narcissistic leader is one who is inclined to have too much of that, but they
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They're kind of a recovering narcissist, so to speak, trying to embrace kind of some of
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these habits of humility, these approaches to help counter this internal inclination.
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And so, you know, some, some levels of narcissism just are very hard to change.
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There's actually some research by David Chester and his colleagues where they found that there's
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neural deficits for narcissists, that they're actually hardwired differently.
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And that the, the reward centers of the brain and that kind of the self-evaluative centers
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of the brain are more disconnected than they are for, for normal people, meaning it's harder
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And so for those individuals, I don't know if, if there's a lot of room to, to move the
00:26:21.300
needle, but for most of the rest of us who have both narcissism, you know, narcissistic
00:26:26.540
tendencies as well as, uh, and we see the value of humility, we can make choices in order to
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surround ourselves with people who will keep us grounded, who won't enable narcissism, but
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We can be overtly trying to, to give credit to other people, even if internally, initially,
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we don't feel that we're, that comes natural to us.
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So from the leaders that, that I've talked to and that we've documented their, their stories,
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And I'm thinking back to even Aristotle, when he talked about what are virtues like humility,
00:27:07.960
He viewed those more as skills that we choose to develop, moral muscles that, that we choose
00:27:13.820
to grow rather than innate characteristics that we have.
00:27:17.240
So, so your, your question about what does a humble narcissist look like?
00:27:20.820
It's one who's embraced this idea that the, all the possible virtues that we could develop
00:27:25.860
like humility are, are like muscles that we can choose to develop.
00:27:29.660
And even if I'm inclined to be narcissistic, I embrace humility and try to practice it in
00:27:35.020
order to stave off the most, the more toxic aspects of, of that narcissism.
00:27:40.480
So you mentioned Steve Jobs as sort of a paradigm of someone who is a narcissist, but eventually
00:27:45.400
was able to temper it a bit, not completely a bit with some humility.
00:27:49.420
Any other examples of, you know, humble narcissistic leaders from, could be even like the realm
00:27:53.460
of politics, you know, history, I mean, any other that stand out to you?
00:27:57.820
So there's one that I think is really interesting.
00:28:00.640
If you look at like, for instance, this is a historical example, but the life of George
00:28:04.660
Washington, young George Washington, he was obsessed with, with becoming prominent.
00:28:10.860
And in his youthful and outsized ambition, he made some foolish blunders that, that were
00:28:16.160
setbacks for him in, at the time, the British military.
00:28:20.280
He thought a lot about his legacy, but he also was one that was aware of it.
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And he learned from his blunders and he really tried to, to improve himself and overcome some
00:28:33.020
of his natural inclinations that were unfavorable.
00:28:36.540
And over time, he, he became someone who was a very polished person, a very effective leader.
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And so that's an example of someone who, again, deep in his bones, he, he really wanted to,
00:28:53.640
And, and that's, he really cared about what history would say about him, but at the same
00:28:58.420
time, he really embraced many aspects of humility.
00:29:01.620
And one of my favorite kind of stories about George Washington is when King George, whom
00:29:07.740
George Washington had just beaten in war, heard that Washington's plan was to give all
00:29:13.760
military power back to Congress, rather than keeping it for himself, like Napoleon and other,
00:29:20.020
and many other leaders who were in a similar position.
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When King George heard that Washington intended to do that, he said, if he does that, he will
00:29:30.260
And so I think it's interesting that George Washington, his leadership prowess and military
00:29:38.920
expertise that beat King George in war was not what made him the greatest man in the world.
00:29:44.660
It was actually this kind of this act of humility of giving power back to Congress that actually
00:29:49.760
completed George Washington as being this, this humble leader who also was, was, had gained
00:29:56.840
So I think as, as far as humble narcissists, I think that George Washington may reflect
00:30:04.540
So we talked about people who are narcissists that who are leaders, they can temper that
00:30:11.180
What about people who are just like, just humble?
00:30:15.160
They're not narcissistic to be effective leaders.
00:30:18.620
Should they learn to be a bit more narcissistic?
00:30:24.980
So we haven't directly looked into that, but what I would say is I don't think narcissism
00:30:35.520
And again, along that spectrum of those self-preservation or self or ego-based tendencies, I mentioned that
00:30:41.120
there's a healthy level of self-confidence and desire to lead and wanting to achieve greatly,
00:30:45.480
but that doesn't necessarily devolve into full-on narcissism, which is, I think, extreme and
00:30:53.480
But you make a good point that sometimes people who are humble need to assert themselves more.
00:30:57.700
They need to exhibit more strength and confidence.
00:31:00.760
And so I'd recommend cultivating greater awareness of one's strengths through either feedback,
00:31:05.660
coaching, or introspection, and then working to more fully own those strengths and practice
00:31:10.360
leveraging them more frequently and effectively in one's role.
00:31:15.320
And also, if you're in a new role, I think it's really important, and we found this over
00:31:18.940
and over, that if you're a brand new leader, establishing some baseline reputation for competence
00:31:25.360
is really important for subsequent kind of expressions of humility to be seen favorably.
00:31:31.900
The leadership scholars call this idiosyncrasy credits.
00:31:38.960
You have to kind of fulfill their expectations for what it means to be leader-like.
00:31:43.920
And then once you've done that, expressions of humility are actually seen as pro-social,
00:31:49.800
as moral attempts to kind of give praise and to be a moral good leader.
00:31:56.480
If you don't have that baseline reputation for competence, then expressions of humility actually
00:32:07.920
You have to, the first impression really does matter.
00:32:12.000
But once that's established, then you have some freedom to approach your leadership with
00:32:23.220
Do you have any other questions you want to explore with this intersection of narcissism,
00:32:27.480
humility, or even just the topic of humility and leadership?
00:32:29.780
Yeah, we have a paper under review that looks more at the neurology behind narcissism.
00:32:36.160
And so, we're trying to get a bit more physiological about this.
00:32:40.680
And we are seeing some interesting differences between brains that are inclined to be more
00:32:45.380
narcissistic and those that are inclined to be more humble.
00:32:51.000
Also, just looking at whether or not humility and the effects of humility last over the long
00:32:57.000
term, meaning a leader shows humility in one instance, how long does that effect take to
00:33:04.020
How long does the contagion leader to follow or contagion effect take?
00:33:09.440
So, there's also a lot that needs to be done with regard to training and developing humility.
00:33:15.360
And so, I think that's kind of where we're headed.
00:33:18.760
We do some leadership training and speaking, but we're in the process of getting some grants
00:33:25.600
in order to take a careful look at how to incorporate humility or help someone to embrace
00:33:36.520
Well, Brad, this has been a great conversation.
00:33:38.060
Is there some place people can go to read the research you've done or check out what you've
00:33:43.860
So, I think one of the best places to look is there's articles on Google Scholar that
00:33:55.100
You can also just look at, I have a CV that has a list of all of the articles that have
00:34:01.540
been published in the popular press with regard to this Harvard Business Review, Inc.
00:34:07.720
And so, those are some areas that people can go to to get more and deeper insight about
00:34:23.140
He's a professor of business ethics at BYU Marriott School of Business.
00:34:26.500
You can find all of his research on humility, narcissism, and leadership on Google Scholar.
00:34:30.540
We've included a list of links to all of his research on our show notes.
00:34:34.080
Make sure to check it out at aom.is slash humble narcissist.
00:34:44.900
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.
00:34:47.740
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00:34:51.280
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