A short series on humility, power, and leadership in a complex world

Humility rarely features in leadership conversations — at least not seriously.

When it does, it’s often framed as something soft, optional, or even risky. A personal preference rather than a leadership capacity. And in many organisational contexts, humility still sits uncomfortably next to expectations of decisiveness, authority, and control.

In this short series, I explore humility from a different angle. Not as a personality trait to admire, but as a practical leadership capacity that becomes more — not less — important as complexity increases.

The three pieces look at humility where it matters most:

1. Humility as strength, not weakness
Why humility is often misunderstood, and how it enables reality-based leadership rather than undermining authority.

2. Humility and power
Where humility tends to break down once pressure, expectations, and hierarchy enter the room — especially for managers who are new in role and feel pushed to “fix” rather than understand.

3. What organisations unknowingly reward
How our recruitment, promotion, and assessment practices quietly shape leadership behaviour, and why we often filter out the very capacities needed to lead in a VUCA world.

Taken together, these reflections point to a simple tension:
what we reward and expect in leaders is not always what leadership actually requires.

This series is an invitation to look more closely at that gap — and to reconsider what we really mean when we talk about strong leadership today.