Radical Humility

Radical Humility is an exceptional book that provides practical insights and tools to cultivate humility and achieve success through cooperative relationships. By adopting the Five Shifts framework and following the actionable insights on leadership, you and your team can create a healthy culture of positivity and empowerment. Humility is a strength and is key to achieving goals in today's complex world.

Radical Humility: Be a Badass Leader and a Good Human by Urs König

I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley with the expectation, but not requirement, that I write a review. The opinion is my own.

The book is about how to be soft on people and hard on results. The author has his own life experiences from athletics, business experience and coaching, and the Swiss military. He was most deeply shaped by the example of his father, who evidently was one of the OGs of demonstrating radical humility and is the real inspiration for the book. The author has also done his homework on effective teams and research on humility (the bibliography is about 20% of the book). Empirically, environments that promote transparency and humility from executives, and psychological safety for employees tend to be more productive and have better retention. I gleaned a lot from this book on building cohesive communication within a team and leading when one has authority but not the level of experience or expertise as subordinates.

“Leadership is a set of cooperative relationships that maximizes the efforts of others to achieve something bigger and better…more simply, leadership is getting important stuff done through and with other people” (loc. 270-271). I liked that definition of leadership to differentiate it from management.

Some aspects of implementing Radical Humility may be off-putting to an introvert. It involves developing “strong personal relationships” with your colleagues, making the worksite more of a family than a job. While studies show that modern workers crave these kinds of connections and it helps improve retention, there are some caveats for me. One quote that the author could have included in the book is one I credit to Andy Stanley: “Trust is the intersection of integrity and competence.” There are a number of bosses and colleagues who I’ve opened up to on a personal level who then didn’t remember the conversation later; it was repeated. There have been other bosses who showed great empathy and even inquired about spiritual matters only to be too “hands off” when it came to doing the work, making me question whether the boss actually cared about anyone or it was just a show.

As a U.S. Foreign Service Officer assigned to a two or three year tour in an office with locally-employed (ie: native) staff who work there as a career, it can be challenging to figure out how to lead in such a way that gets results but does not overdrive the office or call for unnecessary stress such as restructuring. The local staff may also have had abusive experiences with previous managers and are wary of being vulnerable. My last two work roles involved managing much of the day-to-day of an office in which I was the backup to the Senior Manager but had no direct reports of my own. In both instances, I spent Day 1 having one-on-ones with the other employees to learn what they liked/disliked about the job and what their challenges and goals were. I found this worked well to build rapport and trust, similar to what Koenig discusses in this book and I further used his data and anecdotes to make this concrete in my leadership style. Like König, I agree of the importance of showing that you’ll not ask a team member to do something you’re not willing to do yourself; to lead by example.

“Psychological safety” is a buzzwork I hear more of in my government workplace. A senior Director mentioned it on a call with other managers this year; she explained it and the importance of trying to utilize it amongst staff. I agree with the author that it’s absolutely necessary for people to have the freedom to speak up without fear of backlash or retribution. I appreciate his quoting from Ray Dalio and others, as well as presenting exercises in how to lead an office in developing radical transparency. How many lives would be saved and disasters averted if that were the culture in major corporations? Sadly, I’m quite certain it’s not made its way into the Foreign Service culture.

But cultural nuances vary. While Latin American colleagues were very quick to open up about their families, health struggles, and frustrations, I’ve found less enthusiasm initially sharing in Eastern Europe and Asia. In my personal experience learning from the many other American managers in my career, it’s hard to be “tough on results” when you’re friends with colleagues on a deeper level. I had a good manager who cared about people on a personal level, but was never one to hang out after hours or attend activities, making it clear from her past experiences that she could not be “friends” with colleagues whose achievements she rated; it led to conflict and hurt feelings. This aspect goes unexplored in the book. It’s one thing to be able to be a military peacekeeper and give direct orders to your troops, but another when it’s a voluntary job.

The real weakness of the book is that the author tries to tackle too much with one swing of the bat. He easily could have three books from the material in the book. It is denser than it needs to be with a bit too many acronyms and lists. There is also a bit of repetition at the end that makes it redundant rather than reinforcing. It’s also one of my pet peeves when an author writing in Chapter 13 refers back to an obscure concept from a previous chapter with a simple “Remember Chapter 2?”

I made many highlights, it was all helpful content, but it was a bit much. The authors’ ideas and personal stories deserve to be bestsellers, but bestsellers are more compact and easier to digest. I wouldn’t hesitate to hire him as a coach and I hope that he continues writing (and finding strong editors) so that he improves his presentation. I will sign up for his newsletter 3.5 stars.