Humility “is going to be more important in the coming years, as it’s a top requirement for the emerging workforce,” writes Karl Alleman, U.S. managing partner, and Julie Kalt, U.S. assessment and development practice specialist, at Egon Zehnder, in a recent Fast Company article.
“In our research on organizational culture, we found that millennials listed humility as one of the top three most important traits in a leader, along with strategy and ethics,” write Alleman and Zehnder. “Globally, 48% say they look for humility in their leadership, while in the U.S., more than half (54%) say this.”
Too many companies, however, ignore humility as a valued trait as they look for future leaders from within and recruit for outside talent. A common misperception is that a humble person lacks confidence.
But “humble leaders simply express these traits of confidence and ambition in different ways,” write Alleman and Zehnder. “For example, when it comes to motivation, humble individuals are ambitious for the company, not for themselves.”