There is a difference between leaders who listen to respond and those who listen to understand. This difference, sometimes subtle, This is what separates those who become leadership references from those who merely manage. When we talk about humility, we do not speak of an abstract ideal, but with a practical disposition that profoundly transforms work relationships and the collective capacity to think, decide and act.
In a study conducted by Owens and Hekman (2016), which evaluated almost a thousand participants in multiple companies, it was observed that the perception of humility in leaders is directly related to increased team effectiveness. The way, However, is not immediate or intuitive. What the authors identified was that this effectiveness emerges when humility manifests itself as a cognitive style: the so-called balanced processing, that is, the ability to consider multiple information, criticisms and views before making a decision. Humility, in this sense, It is a type of intelligence that tolerates doubt, that recognizes the incompleteness of knowledge itself and that transforms listening into methodology.
Leaders who operate with this way of thinking organize the group based on openness, and not control. They are in no rush to respond — they are committed to understanding. E, when doing this, create environments in which people feel authorized to participate, propose and even oppose. Humility is not only expressed in the tone of speech, but in the way the leader structures the deliberation: who is heard, how arguments are handled, what space is given to divergence. Teams that work with this type of leadership not only perform better — they become more accurate, more confident and more resilient in the face of complexity.
This type of humility cannot be reduced to performative gestures. It requires awareness of one’s own limits, but it also implies the competence to remain intact in the listening process. The humble leader does not give up authority, but transforms its authority into a meeting platform and not a distancing barrier. There is a silent trust that builds when the group realizes that their opinion will not be used against them., nor ignored for convenience. This trust is what sustains effectiveness in the medium and long term — and not very short-cycle metrics.
Besides that, there is a collective psychological effect that cannot be ignored. Studies such as or by Rego et al. (2021) demonstrate that humble leaders contribute to the formation of a positive psychological capital in your teams — made up of hope, optimism, resilience and self-efficacy. These factors, gathered, are the great engines of overcoming uncertain scenarios and the ability to reinvent in pressure contexts. That is: a humildade do líder não apenas produz um ambiente melhor, mas gera líderes em escala, ampliando a potência da organização como um todo.
Talvez o aspecto mais interessante dessa discussão seja perceber que a humildade é profundamente estratégica. Ela não é ingenuidade, nem apenas gentileza. Ela é uma escolha deliberada por uma postura que amplia as possibilidades de acerto ao abrir espaço para que o coletivo pense junto. Quando um líder se dispõe a escutar de verdade, ele não está se diminuindo — está se sofisticando. Está deixando de operar a partir de si mesmo e passando a operar a partir da inteligência do grupo. E isso, no atual cenário de complexidade organizacional, é um diferencial raro.
In the end, a liderança humilde não se mede pela ausência de erros, mas pela capacidade de evitá-los por antecipação — justamente porque se ouviu, se ponderou e se decidiu com mais espessura. A eficácia de um time não depende apenas de processos bem definidos, mas da qualidade das relações que sustentam esses processos. E essa qualidade nasce, invariavelmente, de um tipo de presença que se interessa pelo outro. Não como recurso, mas como fonte de verdade.