Summary and Plan of Action

We have described the concept of level of relationship as the basis for defining what we mean by Humble Leadership. We have also argued that the historically derived current culture of management, built on a number of deep assumptions about employees as role occupants, as “human resources,” cannot see how its own values and assumptions create some of the quality, safety, and employee engagement problems that we see today. A new model built on different assumptions is therefore needed.

These new assumptions are based on the fundamental proposition that we need to build not on individual competencies, but on models of relationships and group dynamic processes. Understanding Humble Leadership hinges on understanding levels of relationships, which is the focus of the next chapter.