Humble Leadership Quotes: 13 Sourced Lines on Humility in Leadership, Question by Question

Jim Collins's research team started with 1,435 companies that had appeared on the Fortune 500 and ended up studying just eleven. Those were the companies that moved from good results to great ones and kept them there. Every one of the eleven was run, at the turning point, by the kind of chief executive Collins called a Level 5 leader: quiet, often shy, and fierce about results. Since Good to Great came out in 2001, "humble leadership" has sounded less like a contradiction and more like something you can find in data.

The quotes on the subject have not kept up. Many of the most shared lines about humility come from the wrong person, the wrong book or no book at all. Below are thirteen lines that pass a source check, arranged around the questions people actually ask about humble leaders. Each one comes with who said it, where, and when it is worth using. The lines that fail the check are listed near the end.

What does humility in a leader actually look like?

Start with what it is not. Lewis and Schein, writing sixty years apart, both describe humility as a kind of attention. It points outward. It is not about running yourself down.

Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. … He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952

The passage comes from "The Great Sin", the chapter on pride in Book III of Mere Christianity. Lewis first gave this material as BBC radio talks during the Second World War. Just before it, he warns that a humble man will not be "a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody." For anyone running a team, that is the useful point: false modesty is still a way of talking about yourself. The test Lewis offers is whether people leave a conversation with you feeling heard.

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The fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.

— Edgar H. Schein, defining "Humble Inquiry" in Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling, 2013

Schein spent his career at MIT's Sloan School studying organizational culture. This short book argues that managers are trained to tell, and that telling closes off the information a leader most needs. His definition turns humility into something you can practise, because a question you do not know the answer to is either asked or it isn't. Use the line when you introduce a listening tour, a skip-level meeting or a first week in a new role.

Isn't a humble leader just a soft one?

This is the objection people raise most often, and both of the strongest answers come from people who studied power closely.

It is very important to grasp that Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great.

— Jim Collins, Good to Great, 2001

Collins's own summary describes Level 5 leaders as "incredibly ambitious, but their ambition is first and foremost for the cause, for the organization and its purpose, not themselves." So his finding is not that nice people win. Ego gets pointed at the work instead of the person. Quote this line whenever "humble" is about to be read as "passive". It is the most useful single sentence in the management literature for that purpose.

You do not lead by hitting people over the head. Any damn fool can do that, but it's usually called 'assault'—not 'leadership.' … I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion—and conciliation—and education—and patience. It's long, slow, tough work.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower, as recorded by Emmet John Hughes in The Ordeal of Power, 1963

This line is often dated to a 1954 Republican luncheon, but the only source is the memoir by Hughes, Eisenhower's former speechwriter (p. 124 of the 1963 edition). Hughes was critical of his old boss, so the exact wording rests on his memory. The ideas fit Eisenhower's documented approach, though: he was the coalition commander who had to keep British, American and Free French generals working together. If you cite it, keep the "as recorded by" credit.

Is this a modern management idea?

No. The two oldest lines in this set make the same argument as Collins, in images rather than data.

That whereby the rivers and seas are able to receive the homage and tribute of all the valley streams, is their skill in being lower than they;—it is thus that they are the kings of them all. So it is that the sage (ruler), wishing to be above men, puts himself by his words below them, and, wishing to be before them, places his person behind them.

— Laozi, Tao Te Ching, chapter 66, translated by James Legge, 1891

Legge's translation appeared in volume 39 of The Sacred Books of the East, and the chapter goes on to say that people then "do not feel his weight." The text is traditionally credited to Laozi, but scholars still argue about who compiled it and when. The image is physical: water collects where the ground is lowest. It works well for an all-hands talk about why managers sit with their teams rather than above them. Credit the translator, because modern versions word it very differently.

But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.

— Jesus, Mark 10:43–44, King James Version, 1611

The setting matters. Two disciples, James and John, have just asked for the seats of honour on either side of Jesus (Mark 10:35–37). This is his reply to everyone, and it is set against rulers who "exercise lordship". In 1611 English "minister" simply meant servant. That is the root of the servant-leadership vocabulary Greenleaf picked up three and a half centuries later. For more of this tradition, see our piece on how Bible verses on servant leadership upended ancient ideas of power.

What does it look like when the pressure is real?

Five documented moments, from 1783 to 1953, show humility working as a leadership tool rather than a personality trait.

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have grown not only gray but almost blind in the service of my country.

— George Washington, Newburgh, New York, 15 March 1783, as recalled by eyewitnesses

Continental Army officers, unpaid for months, had been urged in an anonymous address to defy Congress. Washington called a meeting and spoke against the plan. Then he stopped to put on glasses most of them had never seen him wear. The sentence is not in his prepared text. It comes from the recollections of officers in the room, including David Cobb and Samuel Shaw, and Mount Vernon's library presents it that way. According to those accounts, many officers wept, and the threat of mutiny faded. Washington did not claim any authority here. He showed what the war had cost him.

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

— Abraham Lincoln, letter to Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864

Lincoln wrote to Hodges, a Kentucky newspaper editor, to explain how his position on slavery and emancipation had changed during the war. A president in an election year could have taken full credit for his foresight. He did the opposite. That makes it the best line here for a team update after a success that involved luck, or a change of course you should be honest about.

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Three twentieth-century moments follow the same pattern: the person in charge takes the blame in writing or in public, before anyone asks.

Eisenhower, before D-Day: "it is mine alone"

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower, "In Case of Failure" message, 1944

Eisenhower wrote this by hand in the days before the 6 June 1944 landings. He dated it "July 5", a slip for June, and the original is kept at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, where archivists call it the "In Case of Failure" message. Notice the order of the sentences: the troops are credited first, his own decision is described as reasonable, and the blame comes last and is not shared. If you want a line for a card or a toast about owning a decision, use the last sentence on its own and say where it comes from.

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Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs: "I'm the responsible officer"

There's an old saying that victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan.

— John F. Kennedy, news conference, 21 April 1961

Days after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Kennedy used the proverb to explain why he would answer no questions on Cuba that day. The same answer contains the part that matters for this topic: he said further statements were "not to conceal responsibility, because I'm the responsible officer of the government." The proverb on its own is often quoted as a joke about credit. In context it is a president refusing to let the failure be handed to anyone else, which is why it is worth quoting with its date.

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Truman, leaving office: "He can't pass the buck"

The President—whoever he is—has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job.

— Harry S. Truman, Farewell Address, January 1953

Truman had a glass sign reading "The Buck Stops Here" on his desk. It was made at the federal reformatory in El Reno, Oklahoma, and mailed to him on 2 October 1945 by a friend, the U.S. Marshal Fred Canfil; it now sits in the Truman Library. In the farewell address he said the idea out loud. It is a good line for the end of a hard year because it is about the job, not about him.

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How can you tell whether you are practising it?

Franklin and Greenleaf both give you something to measure, and neither measure is flattering.

I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it.

— Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (section written 1784)

Franklin's list of virtues had twelve items until "a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud". He added a thirteenth, Humility, with the note "Imitate Jesus and Socrates." His practical fix was to give up "direct contradiction" and "positive assertion" in conversation. It is one of the few honest admissions in this genre. Use it when you want to talk about humility without claiming to have it.

The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons?

— Robert K. Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader, 1970

This is the essay that introduced the term "servant leadership". Greenleaf put the test at the centre of it on purpose: it is about outcomes in other people, not about the leader's manner. A humble-sounding manager whose people stay stuck fails it. A blunt one whose people keep getting promoted may pass. Our guide to what Robert Greenleaf actually said separates his own words from the many lines credited to him.

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Four checks you can run this month, built from the lines above:

• Talk ratio (Schein). In your next three one-to-ones, count the questions you ask that you don't already know the answer to.
• Credit direction (Collins). In your last two updates, who was named for wins and who was named for misses?
• Changed mind (Lincoln). When did you last say in public that events, or a colleague, proved you wrong?
• Growth (Greenleaf). Who on your team can now do something they couldn't do a year ago, and did you help or just watch?

Which line fits which message?

When you write the message around the quote, keep two rules. First, the quote should point at the team, not at you. Second, add one concrete sentence the quote can't supply. A thank-you note might read: "Lincoln wrote that he had not controlled events, events had controlled him. That was true of this launch too. What made it work was [name] catching [the specific problem] before it shipped." Fill the brackets with a real name and a real detail from your own team. For short single-line options, our list of short leadership quotes sorted by moment has more.

Which humility quotes are misattributed?

• "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." Credited to C. S. Lewis, but not in his books. The wording appears in Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life (2002), which looks like a paraphrase of the Lewis passage quoted above.
• "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." Credited to Winston Churchill. The Churchill Centre has found no evidence he said it. The earliest known version is in an Altoona (Pennsylvania) Mirror column in 1944, according to Barry Popik's research.
• "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service…" Credited to Tagore's Gitanjali (1912). It is not in the English Gitanjali. No primary source located.
• "The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it." Credited to John Ruskin's Unto This Last (1860). It is not in that text. No primary source located.
• "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another." A smoothed version of Dickens. In Our Mutual Friend (1865, Book III, chapter 9) the line belongs to John Rokesmith, speaking to Bella Wilfer: "No one is useless in this world," retorted the Secretary, "who lightens the burden of it for any one else."
• "The first and most important choice a leader makes is the choice to serve…" Widely credited to Greenleaf, often to The Institution as Servant (1972). We could not locate it in Greenleaf's own essays, and no primary source was confirmed. His documented wording is "The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first."
• "I am still learning" (ancora imparo). Credited to Michelangelo at 87. It traces to Richard Duppa's 1806 life of Michelangelo, which credited him with a drawing that belongs to another artist. No solid source shows it was his motto.
• "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Credited to Socrates. A paraphrase: in the Apology (21d) Socrates says that he does not think he knows what he does not know.
• "A leader is best when people barely know he exists." Credited to Lao Tzu. Chapter 17 of the Tao Te Ching says something close, but every translation words it differently, so the quoted version belongs to a specific translator.
• "We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." Credited to Ernest Hemingway and cited to a 1961 newspaper, but no first-hand text turns up.
• "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." Credited to Publilius Syrus. We could not confirm it in his Sententiae; the thought is also credited to other ancient authors.

The pattern is familiar from the Leaders Eat Last quotes: a line gets smoother and more famous each time it is shared, and its real author drops away. A humble leader can at least get the credit right.