Of all the ups and downs business owners go through, and the mistakes they make amongst the chaos of running a business, one key human emotion is often overlooked – Humility. When things are finally going right, and you are flying high, humility often turns into confidence. But confidence may also turn into arrogance. No matter how successful and powerful you are, no one likes dealing with someone thinks he knows everything.
Arrogance is a trait that is very off-putting. Business owners sometimes come off as if they are far superior to others and know everything. Whilst being confident is good, it can also prevent you from sales. While you need to be confident to push a product or service into the marketplace and turn it into a success, humility is what prevents that confidence from transforming into arrogance.
Being humble is an attribute that many of our leaders have and it authenticates that individual’s humanity. A great leader has deeper levels of understanding of what their strengths and weaknesses are. This awareness is honed from experience and having it is crucial to developing humility.
If you come off as perfect, the people you work or interact with aren’t going to follow you and look up to you. They feel it wouldn’t be possible for someone of that high a status, to accept them.
On the other hand, when you are humble, it makes people around you feel accepted and safe, and it draws them to you. Self-awareness is the difference between plain arrogance and confidence.
Building humility in yourself takes some effort
A confident entrepreneur is self-aware of their company’s culture, their customer’s needs, as well as the rapid pace at which their industry evolves. Here are some ways in which you can keep yourself well-grounded and maintain your humility:
- Communication matters- Communication is a two-way street, and if you are the one that always does all the talking, you will automatically turn a deaf ear to those around you. Being a great leader is about being an excellent listener. You need to know exactly when to voice your opinion and make your move.
- Acknowledge people – A humble leader will focus on the strengths of his or her team members and make sure they are acknowledged at every juncture. This goes a long way in keeping the team motivated and enthusiastic. Cutting people down to size and criticizing them may show some short-term results. But in the long-term, these can only result in higher levels of employee turnover and burnout.
When you make your team feel acknowledged they feel more successful. You also need to ensure you acknowledge people when something doesn’t work the way you expected it to. Coach your team on what went wrong, develop new strategies and send them back to attempt things again. If your team has failed somewhere, as a humble leader, you will know that you are part of that equation.
- Focus on collaboration– Success is often better-gained from a collaborative approach rather than a competitive one. Collaborative leaders will always recognise the strengths of each team member coach them and help them improve upon their shortcomings. While a certain level of competition is required to keep the team on their toes, excessive amounts of it result in a feeling of insecurity and destroy This will only impact your business negatively.
A great leader knows how to balance power and humility perfectly and boost the success of their business without undermining or running people they work with, into the ground.
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