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Revisiting Humility as a Leadership Attribute in the Army

 

Col. Jordon E. Swain, PhD, U.S. Army
Maj. Catherine Grizzle, U.S. Army
Maj. Benjamin Ordiway, U.S. Army
Jacob A. Brown, PhD

 

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It has been twenty-five years since Lt. Col. Joseph Doty and Dr. Dan Gerdes penned their piece in Military Review calling for the Nation’s oldest branch of service to embrace the leader attribute of humility.¹ In that nearly quarter century, much has changed in what is known about humility and the promise it holds for leaders in the Army.

Since 2000, scholars have produced over twenty-three thousand works exploring humility, clarifying the concept, and generating new, important insights into both the benefits and challenges of leader humility. The past quarter century has also seen the Army reintroduce humility to its leadership doctrine, although this does not mean that every leader in uniform understands or embraces the attribute.

Several articles penned on humility and leadership since 2000 specifically explore humility and leadership in the military context. Many of these articles are written at an accessible, practical level to help those in uniform appreciate the value of humility as a leadership attribute in not only the Army but also all branches of service (see table 1).

Despite all that has changed in the past twenty-five years, some things remain the same, including Doty and Gerdes’s original statement about humility that avers, “As the military becomes involved across the spectrum of conflict, this misunderstood leadership trait becomes more important,” as well as their sentiment that “humility must never be viewed as a weakness.”²

The purpose of this article is to revisit some of the points made by Doty and Gerdes in their original work about humility as a leadership attribute in the Army, to highlight both benefits and challenges that recent work has revealed about leader humility in the military, and to offer some suggestions for Army leaders to consider moving forward in order to help ensure they, and the teams they lead, understand and embrace humility.

Humility Enters the Mainstream

Doty and Gerdes were correct in 2000 when they noted that organizations outside of the military had begun to value the importance of humility. It is now safe to assert that, unlike at the time of their original article, the virtue of humility is no longer overlooked in discussions about leadership. Humility is no longer a novel concept in leadership studies and has been linked to several popular theories including authentic leadership, ethical leadership, servant leadership, and transformational leadership.³ Years of empirical research have clarified the concept of humility and have also yielded insights into a number of positive outcomes at the personal, follower, team, and organizational levels including the facilitation of improved well-being, trust, motivation, enhanced creativity and innovation, reduced turnover intention, and overall improved performance and effectiveness, to name just a few (see table 2).⁴

Humility and Leadership in the U.S. Army

While Doty and Gerdes’s piece in Military Review was both insightful and impactful in 2000, their work was not the first to extol the benefits of humility for leaders in uniform. In fact, Army Field Manual (FM) 22-10, Leadership, prescribed humility as early as 1951, listing it as a leadership trait of “paramount importance.” At the time, the Army’s leadership doctrine defined humility as “freedom from arrogance and unjustifiable pride.”⁵ Humility also appeared in FM 22-100, Military Leadership, as late as 1983, which advised leaders, “The more you and your subordinates display the following traits, the more you increase your chances for effectiveness in difficult, crisis situations,” before listing humility along with several other attributes.⁶ In 1983, the Army’s leadership doctrine defined humility as “admitting weaknesses or imperfections in your character, knowledge, and skills. It is acknowledging mistakes and taking the appropriate action to correct those mistakes.”⁷ The topic of humility then disappeared from the Army’s leadership manual until 2019, when it was reintroduced at the direction of the commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.

In 2019, humility made a reappearance in the Army’s leadership manual as a prescribed element of character. Army Doctrinal Publication 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, succinctly defines humility as an absence of arrogance. It goes on to state, “A leader with the right level of humility is a willing learner, maintains accurate self-awareness, and seeks out others’ input and feedback.”⁸ FM 6-22, Developing Leaders, published in 2022, goes further, stating, “Humility is a desired characteristic of organizational and strategic leaders who should recognize that others have specialized expertise indispensable to success.”⁹

While Doty and Gerdes encouraged readers to embrace humility as a leadership attribute in their original work, they also posed the question, “What does humility look like in a military leader?”¹⁰ The Army’s updated leadership doctrine offers some advice on this front, but research reveals there are nine general behaviors that leaders can exhibit to express humility (see table 3).¹¹ Of particular note, the benefits ascribed to humility are assumed to follow from expressions of humility that are sincere and authentic.¹² Humility cannot be performative; it must be exhibited for the sake of the virtue and not primarily for some other external purpose such as a performance rating or favorable command assessment.

Benefits of Humility in the Army

The reintroduction of humility into the Army’s leadership doctrine in 2019 came as a direct response to the problem of toxic leadership.¹³ The intent was that the self-awareness, focus on others, and willingness to learn that are hallmarks of humility would help individuals identify and avoid (or correct) a number of counterproductive leader behaviors that have deleterious effects on the Army—from recruiting and retention issues to motivational and organizational performance challenges.

In addition to its utility in combatting counterproductive leadership behaviors, humility also equips Army leaders to perform effectively across the full spectrum of operations in which they might be called upon to serve. Humble leaders foster the creativity and innovative thinking required for their teams and organizations to thrive in the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment that characterizes the world in which the Army operates today. Research suggests that humble leaders help facilitate small, continuous changes rather than large, infrequent changes, which enables their teams to adapt to their environment better.¹⁴ Humble leaders—who acknowledge they may not have all of the answers and who leverage the collective knowledge of their teams—speed up adaptation and may also make better decisions in these VUCA situations. Further, some see humility as an essential to mission command—a vital skill for operating in a VUCA environment, particularly when some individuals (e.g., toxic leaders) are themselves volatile or unwilling to tolerate ambiguity. Specifically, “Humility plays a critical role in enhancing three of the principles of Mission Command essential for effective leadership: build cohesive teams through mutual trust, create shared understanding and exercise disciplined initiative.”¹⁵ Research also suggests humility is linked to trust and successful leadership in in extremis environments.¹⁶ Finally, humility has been tied to heroism, making the character trait something leaders in uniform should be keen to encourage.¹⁷

Challenges of Humility in the Army

While much has changed in the twenty-five years since Military Review published Doty and Gerdes’s thought-provoking essay, some things have remained the same. Doty and Gerdes highlighted in 2000 that humility was “misunderstood.”¹⁸ Unfortunately, despite the volumes of research and the readdition of humility to the Army’s leadership doctrine, this misunderstanding of the concept appears to remain to some extent.

In interviews of over seventy active-duty officers and NCOs conducted between 2019 and 2024, only 1 percent knew that humility had been added to the Army’s leadership doctrine, and a significant percentage did not have a clear understanding of what constitutes humility, with many conflating it with modesty or being timid.¹⁹ Further, of over one hundred officers surveyed between 2017 and 2024, a small number did not feel humility was appropriate for leading in uniform, while a greater number felt ambivalent about the importance of the character trait for successfully leading in the Army.²⁰ Results from the FY23 Center for Army Leadership Annual Study of Army Leadership reveal that among the attributes evaluated in uniformed leaders, humility is one of the least favorably rated.²¹ This result could indicate that Army leaders are not embracing or exhibiting humility, or it could be that subordinates are not familiar with what humility is and are not able to recognize it. Either explanation poses a challenge that should be addressed.

Misgivings about humility are not without some merit. While not tested in a military population specifically, one study suggests that humble leaders may be viewed as lacking decisiveness, which can cause followers to question the leader’s effectiveness, especially in time sensitive situations.²² As Doty and Gerdes noted in 2000, “One could argue that a lack of humility would be acceptable in high-intensity operations” (which are often time sensitive).²³ However, we submit that Doty and Gerdes’s response to the point in 2000 still stands today, that “the need for stable leaders with authentic humility remains constant. Indeed, humility transcends context to permeate every action of the leader, renewing credibility and trustworthiness, regardless of the situation, operation or intensity.”²⁴

Humility can also inadvertently result in undesirable effects. For example, increased psychological entitlement and subsequent workplace deviance among subordinates can occur if a subordinate attributes a leader’s humble behaviors to their own uniqueness and contributions.²⁵ Consider, for example, a leader who expresses humility by admitting that they may not be experienced in a task, who asks a subordinate for input to accomplish that task, and who then publicly acknowledges the valuable input of that subordinate. This could inadvertently encourage that subordinate to feel entitled—giving the subordinate the psychological freedom to feel they can violate organizational norms. In other words, humble leaders may cause some to feel special and as if they can fail to abide by certain rules because of their special status.

Finally, there is some trepidation that “too much humility” can undermine leaders, causing some to perceive them as indecisive, possibly hampering their career advancement and even limiting their team’s development.²⁶ There is also qualitative research that suggests some of those in uniform feel they do not benefit from expressing humility (and perhaps may even pay a perceived competence penalty for displaying humility), especially those of lower status (e.g., women and those of low rank).²⁷ That said, Owens and Hekman found that the influence of age and gender was described as less impactful in military settings for shaping competence perceptions.²⁸ However, a quantitative study by Swain and Korenman may support some of these expressed concerns, finding that while they were not penalized for expressing humility, women in the Army received less benefit than their male counterparts when exhibiting the same humble behaviors.²⁹

While leading with humility may have its challenges, these challenges can be overcome. For example, to prevent leader humility from accidentally encouraging workplace deviance, leaders can behave consistently when engaging with subordinates while also communicating to subordinates who may exhibit self-serving attribution tendencies that they treat all subordinates humbly instead of treating only select subordinates humbly. Further, despite existing misunderstandings or misgivings, quantitative research involving senior officers and sample Officer Evaluation Reports reveals that humble behaviors do not negatively impact assessments of leadership potential in the Army for leaders of any gender.³⁰

Ultimately, leadership is not easy, but the benefits that can result from humble leadership seem to more than justify the effort the Army leaders may need to put forth to overcome any challenges that may arise as they develop their humility and the humility of those they lead.

The Future of Humility as a Leadership Attribute in the Army

In their 2000 article, Doty and Gerdes stated that “humility is uncommon.”³¹ By adding humility back into its leadership doctrine, the Army would appear to be attempting to make humility in its ranks less “uncommon.” However, simply adding the term to a manual is not enough to ensure that humility becomes common in the Army. Army leaders need to focus on developing their individual humility as well as encouraging humility in their teams and organizations.

At the individual level, leaders need to assess their personal level of humility and, if it is lacking, set a goal of becoming more humble. Seeking input from a trusted mentor can help in this effort. Additionally, the table titled “Seek Feedback and Explore Personal Performance” from FM 6-22 provides guidance on how to assess and develop personal/individual humility (see table 4).³² Further, in their search for self-development, individuals can deepen their understanding of humility and leadership through reading, podcasts, and other leader development tools. These items exist in abundance, with several focused specifically on military leaders. Leaders seeking to develop their own humility may also focus on research and writing on the topic, which can facilitate the reflection required for growth.

Developing humility in followers and teams requires leaders to exhibit humble behaviors like those listed in table 3. Leaders who exhibit humility create teams who embrace humility.³³ However, demonstrating humble behaviors is only part of the solution. There is a fear among some that humility is perceived as a lack of confidence and competence, especially among more junior military personnel.³⁴ To address this, leaders can do things like emphasizing humility in stories. In 2000, Doty and Gerdes mentioned, “Humility is not brought up when studying some of history’s greatest military leaders (such as George S. Patton, Douglas MacArthur, Napoleon Bonaparte and Erwin Rommel).”³⁵ Leaders can highlight the behaviors and successes of humble leaders like Ulysses S. Grant, Joshua L. Chamberlain, George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harold (Hal) G. Moore, and Colin Powell.³⁶ Holding up successful, venerated humble exemplars—especially iconic leaders from the past—can address stigma that may exist about humble leadership in the Army and signal to burgeoning leaders the type of people they should emulate.³⁷ Informally, leaders can also focus on humility as they mentor others, reinforcing humble behaviors or pointing out where a protégé may be falling short. More formally, commanders or supervisors can provide developmental experiences to foster humility in their subordinates—new challenging opportunities in both garrison and field training environments that provide teachable moments that cultivate humility.

At the organizational level, fostering humble leadership ultimately requires creating a culture of humility, and that requires the communication and reinforcement of appropriate values and norms.³⁸ Updating doctrine was certainly a major step in the right direction, but there are additional steps that can be taken to create a culture that fosters leader humility.

As the adage goes, “actions speak louder than words,” so modeling humble behaviors is something organizational leaders should prioritize, but this is not the most efficient method for communicating, especially in large organizations. Leaders can write on or highlight the benefits of humility via other mediums. For example, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey included humility in his leadership philosophy.³⁹ Leaders can also incorporate humility into leader professional development efforts (e.g., perhaps leveraging some of the examples and scenarios of humble military leaders mentioned earlier in this article or resources provided by the Combined Arms Center).⁴⁰ Additionally, senior leaders could incorporate humility into the leader development components of the Army’s Professional Military Education system.

Organizational leaders need to not only communicate the importance of humility, but they also need to recognize and incentivize humility, thereby reinforcing the change they hope to achieve. While there are a wide variety of actions organizational leaders could take in this vein, a few suggestions follow:

• Reference humility (or lack thereof) in evaluations.
• Include humility as a point of discussion in precommissioning and professional military education, as well as in leader professional development sessions.
• Ensure the MacArthur and other awards factor in humility.
• Consider humility when selecting key leaders such as battalion and brigade commanders and command sergeants major.

Conclusion

While Doty and Gerdes may not have been the first to recognize the importance of humility for leaders in the Army, their article certainly precipitated what has become an increasingly rich body of literature exploring humility as a desirable leader attribute for those in uniform. And while humility is not a cure-all for the myriad challenges military leaders may face (or the only facet leaders should focus their development efforts on), humility is, in fact, a strength and not a weakness that helps Army leaders prepare to successfully lead their teams and organizations across the full spectrum of conflicts in a VUCA environment. Consequently, Army leaders should strive to exhibit (and encourage) humility.

At the end of their original work, Doty and Gerdes asked, “Do you need humility to be considered a leader?”⁴¹ Of course, the answer to that question is “No.” Perhaps a better question to ask today is, “Do you need humility to be an effective leader?” We humbly submit that the answer to that question is “yes.”

 

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Notes

1. Joseph Doty and Daniel Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute,” Military Review 80, no. 5 (September-October 2000): 89–90.
2. Doty and Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute.”
3. Yifei Luo et al., “Humble Leadership and Its Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis,” Frontiers in Psychology 13 (2022): 980322, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.980322.
4. Rob Nielsen and Jennifer A. Marrone, “Humility: Our Current Understanding of the Construct and Its Role in Organizations,” International Journal of Management Reviews 20, no. 4 (2018): 805–24, https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12160; Jeffrey A. Chandler et al., “A Meta-Analysis of Humble Leadership: Reviewing Individual, Team, and Organizational Outcomes of Leader Humility,” Leadership Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2023): 101660, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2022.101660; Xiaoshuang Lin et al., “How Do Humble Leaders Unleash Followers’ Leadership Potential? The Roles of Workplace Status and Individualistic Orientation,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 45, no. 6 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2793.
5. Field Manual (FM) 22-10, Leadership (U.S. Government Printing Office, 6 March 1951), 17.
6. FM 22-100, Military Leadership (U.S. Government Printing Office, 31 October 1983), 121.
7. FM 22-100, Military Leadership, 125.
8. Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession (U.S. Government Publishing Office [GPO], 31 July 2019), 2-11.
9. FM 6-22, Developing Leaders (U.S. GPO, 1 November 2022), 1-7.
10. Doty and Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute,” 90.
11. Bradley P. Owens et al., “Expressed Humility in Organizations: Implications for Performance, Teams, and Leadership,” Organization Science 24, no. 5 (2013): 1517–38, https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0795.
12. Burak Oc et al., “Humility Breeds Authenticity: How Authentic Leader Humility Shapes Follower Vulnerability and Felt Authenticity,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 158 (2020): 112–25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.04.008.
13. Stephen Townsend (general [retired], former U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command commander), interview with author Jordon Swain, 19 October 2021.
14. Bradley P. Owens and David R. Hekman, “Modeling How to Grow: An Inductive Examination of Humble Leader Behaviors, Contingencies, and Outcomes,” Academy of Management Journal 55, no. 4 (2012): 787–818, https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.0441.
15. Robert B. Brown and Robert M. Taradash, “Humility: A Mission Command Essential,” Association of the United States Army, 20 April 2015, https://www.ausa.org/articles/humility-mission-command-essential.
16. Thomas A. Kolditz, In Extremis Leadership: Leading as If Your Life Depended on It (John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 33.
17. Jordon E. Swain and Elise Murray Dykhuis, “Heroism and Humility,” in Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies (Springer, Cham., 2023), last modified 14 August 2023, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_298-1.
18. Doty and Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute,” 89.
19. Jacob Brown et al., “Becoming a ‘Humilitary’: The Envisioning, Anticipating, and Embracing of Humility to Combat Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Army” [manuscript in preparation].
20. Brown et al., “Becoming a ‘Humilitary.’”
21. April D. Sanders et al., FY23 Center for Army Leadership Annual Study of Army Leadership: Views from the Force: The People, the Place, and Readiness, accession no. AD1216054 (Center for Army Leadership, March 2024 [CAC required]).
22. Shengming Liu et al., “Not the Time to be Humble! When and Why Leader Humility Enhances and Deteriorates Evaluations on Leader Effectiveness and Satisfaction with Leader,” Journal of Management Studies 61, no. 6 (2024): 1–27, https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13137.
23. Doty and Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute,” 90.
24. Doty and Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute,” 90.
25. Xin Qin et al., “The Double-Edged Sword of Leader Humility: Investigating When and Why Leader Humility Promotes Versus Inhibits Subordinate Deviance,” Journal of Applied Psychology 105, no. 7 (2020): 693–712, https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000456.
26. Tony Martignetti, “3 Ways Humility Can Undermine Leadership,” Harvard Business Review, 4 March 2024, https://hbr.org/2024/03/3-ways-humility-can-undermine-your-leadership.
27. Brown et al., “Becoming a ‘Humilitary.’”
28. Bradley P. Owens and David R. Hekman, “How Does Leader Humility Influence Team Performance? Exploring the Mechanisms of Contagion and Collective Promotion Focus,” Academy of Management Journal 59, no. 3 (2016): 1088–111, https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2013.0660.
29. Jordon Swain and Lisa Korenman, “In Their Humble Opinion: How Expressions of Humility Affect Superiors’ Assessments of Leadership Potential in the US Army,” Military Psychology 30, no. 6 (2018): 507–27, https://doi.org/10.1080/08995605.2018.1503002.
30. Swain and Korenman, “In Their Humble Opinion.”
31. Doty and Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute,” 90
32. Table 4 from FM 6-22, Developing Leaders, 4-12.
33. Arménio Rego et al., “How Leader Humility Helps Teams to be Humbler, Psychologically Stronger, and More Effective: A Moderated Mediation Model,” Leadership Quarterly 28, no. 5 (2017): 639–58, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.02.002.
34. Owens and Hekman, “Modeling How to Grow.”
35. Doty and Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute,” 89.
36. Erik Eckhart, “Baylor Expert Shares Four Keys to Leadership from Ulysses S. Grant’s Reflections on Civil War,” Baylor University, 13 May 2021, https://news.web.baylor.edu/news/story/2021/baylor-expert-shares-four-keys-leadership-ulysses-s-grants-reflections-civil-war; Lucas Beissner and Scott Heyler, “The Value of Leader Humility in the Military,” Journal of Character and Leadership Development 7, no. 1 (2020): 41–53, https://jcldusafa.org/index.php/jcld/article/view/104/101; Andrew Clark, “Humility: The Inconspicuous Quality of a Master of War,” Military Review 101, no. 1 (2021): 42–47; Jesse N. Kadel, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute: Understanding the Effects of Humility on Military Leadership” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2018).
37. Jeffrey S. Bednar and Jacob A. Brown, “Organizational Ghosts: How ‘Ghostly Encounters’ Enable Former Leaders to Influence Current Organizational Members,” Academy of Management Journal 67, no. 3 (2024): 737–66, https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2022.0622.
38. Tiffany Maldonado et al., “How Humble Is Your Company Culture? And, Why Does It Matter?,” Business Horizons 61, no. 5 (2018): 745–53, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2018.05.005.
39. Jim Garamone, “Dempsey Reflects on Leadership, Building Leaders,” Department of Defense News, 6 March 2015, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/604224/dempsey-reflects-on-leadership-building-leaders/.
40. Training materials on humility like those produced by the Combined Arms Center could be useful in unit Leader Professional Development sessions. See, for example, “Humility Videos,” U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, accessed 22 May 2025, https://usacac.army.mil/Organizations/Centers-of-Excellence-CoE/MCCoE/Center-For-Army-Leadership-CAL/Resource-Library/Humility.
41. Doty and Gerdes, “Humility as a Leadership Attribute,” 90.

 

 

 

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