What is low-ego leadership?

low-ego leadership (noun)

The practice of setting aside one’s own vanity for the benefit of a colleague, work situation, or client.

Leaders can encourage sustained, long-term organizational change by emphasizing kindness and putting others’ interests ahead of their own — behavior that is enabled by a low-ego approach to leadership.

Writing for management consultancy Baringa, MIT Sloan senior lecturer Elsbeth Johnson explains that leaders who demonstrate low-ego leadership “care more about getting to the right answer than in being the one who came up with it.” This encourages collaboration and innovation, Johnson writes, because other people are more likely to work with those selfless leaders and share their best ideas.

Low-ego leaders also promote team capability by being genuinely interested in what and how much their teams are learning. These executives develop employees as experts in their own right, because they don’t feel the need to know it all.

This type of “quiet leadership” may be current, but it’s not new, Johnson writes. “My esteemed former MIT colleague, the late Ed Schein, has noted the importance of humility in being able to keep an open mind and properly engage in conversations that get to the bottom of an issue.”

The value of low-ego leadership