Leaders with humility will succeed in their career.  Humility allows people to listen to, and learn from others who have been where the are going.  Humility doesn’t mean you doubt your ability, it means you respect the ability of others.

C.S. Lewis once said, “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

Here are three reasons why leaders with humility succeed:

Leaders with humility succeed  because they are open to learning from others.  Great leaders realize that there is very little they do well that they didn’t learn from someone else.  Learning from others is a strength of great leaders.  Will Rogers once said, “A man learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”

Leaders with humility succeed because they gain knowledge and wisdom from every encounter.  Each person can learn and grow if they will determine to learn from the success of others. Bill Nye said, “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.”

John Maxwell, the great leadership expert, uses a set of seven questions when he talks to successful leaders:

1. What are the great lessons you have learned?
2. How has failure shaped your life?
3. What are your strengths?
4. What is your passion?
5. Who do you know that I should know?
6. What have you read that I should read?
7. What have you done that I should do?

Leaders with humility succeed because they surround themselves with people who know more than they do.  Great leaders know that they can’t know everything.  If you want to be the best, then hire the best in every area. Leaders with humility don’t need to be the smartest person in the room; in fact it is a requirement that they are not.

Malcolm Forbes, former publisher of Forbes said, “Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he’s hired to do.”

Leo Iacocca, Chrysler’s former CEO said,  ”I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.”