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Humility in novice leaders: links to servant

leadership and followers’ satisfaction with
leadership

Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso & Wade C. Rowatt

To cite this article: Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso & Wade C. Rowatt (2021): Humility in novice
leaders: links to servant leadership and followers’ satisfaction with leadership, The Journal of
Positive Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2021.1952647

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2021.1952647

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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2021.1952647

Humility in novice leaders: links to servant leadership and followers’ satisfaction

with leadership
a b
Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso and Wade C. Rowatt
a
Department of Psychology, Pepperdine University, Malibu, United States; bDepartment of Psychology and Neuroscience, Baylor University,
Waco, United States

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Across two studies, we investigated connections between leader humility, servant leadership, and Received 27 April 2021
follower satisfaction. Leaders were resident and spiritual life advisors in on-campus housing at Accepted 22 June 2021
a university. In Study 1, we assessed leaders’ self-reported expressed humility, intellectual humility, KEYWORDS
and servant leadership at three times across six months. Leader humility did not change across Expressed humility;
time, but aspects of both forms of leader humility were positively associated with servant leader­ intellectual humility; servant
ship. In Study 2, leaders were rated by their followers. Leaders reporting more respect for diverse leadership; longitudinal;
viewpoints, a characteristic of intellectual humility, had followers who were more satisfied with multi-level modeling
their leaders’ interpersonal leadership and justice orientation. This research suggest potential
benefits to cultivating humility among novice leaders in some contexts.

Humility has been a topic of interest in leadership stu­
dies. Collins (2001), for example, discovered companies
that ascend from ‘good to great’ stock values have CEOs
with a paradoxical combination of humility and strong
professional will. Leaders, and the groups they manage,
may languish if leaders are self-centered or arrogantly
overestimate their knowledge and ability. In contrast,
leaders who recognize the limits of their knowledge
and an are open to learning are well-positioned to
attend to their followers and become better leaders.
This topic has often been examined in corporate set­
tings, where leaders who express humility have been
shown to increase team performance (Owens &
Hekman, 2012; Rego et al., 2017) and subordinates’ job
satisfaction (Owens et al., 2013).
In the current research, we examined humility among
novice leaders in a community leadership context,
where followers may particularly benefit from leaders
who are caring and willing to work behind the scenes.
Our goal was to assess whether leader humility would be
associated with leaders engaging in more servant lea­
dership across time, and whether leader humility would
predict followers’ satisfaction with leaders’ performance.
Humility defined and its measurement
Broadly defined, humility involves being down-to-earth,
unassuming, and willing to admit limits or mistakes (vis
a vis being arrogant, self-centered, or conceited;
Tangney, 2000; Van Tongeren et al., 2019). The terms
humble and humility can be traced to Latin words
humus ‘earth’ or humilis ‘on the ground.’ Humble per­
sons are metaphorically well-grounded and don’t think
too highly (or lowly) about themselves. However,
because secondary definitions of humility include servi­
lity or timidity, psychologists and philosophers are care­
ful to distinguish authentic humility from self-
abasement (Weidman et al., 2018) and intellectual humi­
lity from intellectual servility (Haggard et al., 2018;
Whitcomb et al., 2015).
In the following studies, we examined whether two
forms of humility – expressed and intellectual humility –
were associated with servant leadership (Studies 1 & 2)
and followers’ satisfaction with their leaders (Study 2).
Expressed humility (EH; Owens et al., 2013), a form of
interpersonal humility in the social domain, involves
a willingness to see the self accurately, expression of
appreciation for others’ contributions, and teachability
(Owens & Hekman, 2012; Owens et al., 2013). Intellectual
humility (IH) is marked by an awareness of the limits of
one’s knowledge and is often conceptualized as includ­
ing a willingness to revise one’s views given an eviden­
tiary basis (Haggard et al., 2018; Krumrei-Mancuso &
Rouse, 2016; Leary et al., 2017). Some have conceptua­
lized interpersonal features of IH, such as
a respectfulness of diverse viewpoints or a non-

CONTACT Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso Elizabeth.Mancuso@pepperdine.edu

Author NoteElizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6151-7845Wade C. Rowatt https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6257-5550
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
2 E. J. KRUMREI-MANCUSO AND W. C. ROWATT
defensiveness about intellectual disagreements
(Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016; McElroy et al., 2014).
EH and IH are unique in that EH represents the inter­
personal expression of general humility, whereas IH is
centered on people’s beliefs about what they know. Yet,
the constructs also have overlapping content, given that
EH, as a general form of humility, encompasses some
qualities of the subdomain of IH, and IH (like EH) can be
expressed interpersonally. According to McElroy-Heltzel
et al. (2019), measures of both EH and IH tap the same
facets of: openness/lack of superiority, other-oriented
unselfishness, and willingness to admit mistakes/teach­
able. We posit both qualities of humility could predis­
pose one to engage in servant leadership and to be an
effective leader.
We had leaders self-report their levels of humility
—a method that has been a point of discussion in
the literature. Some have raised concerns about self-
reporting humility (e.g., Davis et al., 2010; Tangney,
2000). However, concerns have lessened over time
(e.g., Davis & Hook, 2014; Worthington & Allison,
2018), as research has supported the construct valid­
ity of self-reported humility (Ashton et al., 2014) and
humility measures have correlated negligibly with
desirable responding (e.g., Haggard et al., 2018;
Leary et al., 2017). In the current research, we exam­
ined whether self-reported humility would predict
both self- and other-reported leadership qualities
and outcomes, to evaluate whether links between
humility and leadership would transcend common
method variance.
Servant leadership defined and its outcomes
By definition, servant leaders are inclined to put
others first and focus on followers’ well-being
(Greenleaf, 1977). Servant leaders patiently guide,
attend to, and aid their followers. Several servant-
leader qualities—such as empathy, listening,
a commitment to others’ growth, and community
building—can contribute to leaders’ effectiveness
(Spears, 2010). Servant leadership is also associated
with stronger relationships between leaders and their
followers, including greater trust and loyalty, as well
as personal and professional benefits to followers (see
Krumrei-Mancuso, 2020, for review). Much of this
research has been conducted in for-profit organiza­
tions, but research from community settings mirrors
these findings. For example, in an educational con­
text in Indonesia, teachers’ ratings of their supervi­
sors’ servant leadership strongly predicted trust/
loyalty (Sendjaya et al., 2017).
Theorized connections between humility,
servant leadership, and satisfaction with
leaders
There are theoretical and empirical reasons to hypothe­
size a connection between humility and the nature of
leadership (Owens & Hekman, 2016). Below, we review
prosocial correlates of humility that could predispose
leaders to serve followers and to be appreciated by
followers. We also consider the role of humility in the
formation of social bonds and the smoothing of social
interactions, which may be particularly relevant to the
social aspects of leadership.
Humility and prosociality
Broadly, theorists posit humility promotes cooperation
and reciprocal altruism in dyads and small groups (see
Ashton & Lee, 2007). For example, humility correlates
with numerous positive and prosocial qualities (Leman
et al., 2016) implicated in interpersonal cooperation and
teamwork (Ashton & Lee, 2007; Barrick et al., 2001) such
as agreeableness, openness, perspective-taking, helpful­
ness (LaBouff et al., 2012), generosity (Exline & Hill, 2012),
and social relationship quality (Peters et al., 2011). IH,
broadly defined, has also predicted more prosocial
values such as empathy, benevolence, and lower power-
seeking (Krumrei-Mancuso, 2017). Because humility pro­
motes a prosocial orientation to aid others, we predicted
humility would be positively associated with servant
leadership and followers’ satisfaction with their leaders.
Humility, social bonds, and social oil
More specifically, we theorized humility, servant leader­
ship, and follower satisfaction with leaders are con­
nected, in part, because humility can facilitate social
bonding (Van Tongeren et al., 2019) between leader
and followers (cf. Van Tongeren et al., 2019). Humble
leaders may care for those they serve in ways that create
or strengthen bonds. In contrast, a sense of superiority
could signal inaccessibility and prevent the formation of
healthy leader-follower relationships.
Expressing humility could also function like
a metaphorical social oil (Van Tongeren et al., 2019)
that smooths social interactions and reduces interperso­
nal friction. Humility involves a lowering of the self that
could be disarming and put others at ease. This may also
extend to IH, as one study found that students with
some instruction about IH engaged in more compromise
seeking than those who did not receive instruction in IH
(Meagher et al., 2019).

Literature from organizational settings suggests that
leaders who express humility tend to validate followers,
which can increase the perception of the leader as sin­
cere and promote follower engagement (Owens &
Hekman, 2012). Krumrei-Mancuso (2020) positioned
humility as an operating mechanism of servant leader­
ship that contributes to a host of positive outcomes,
such as increasing mutual respect and trust and improv­
ing communication. EH and IH may be vehicles through
which leaders are able to transcend self in a way that
promotes taking an other-oriented approach to leader­
ship (i.e., servant leadership).
Given conceptual connections between EH/IH and
prosocial qualities, we theorized EH/IH would promote
servant leadership. Further, we thought the social bond­
ing and social oil hypotheses of humility would be parti­
cularly relevant to the interpersonal aspects of
leadership, involving the relationship and interactions
between leaders and followers. Further, humility may
be especially impactful for novice leaders and peer lea­
dership, which is relevant to this study of student leaders
tasked with helping fellow students grow, develop, and
get along in residential communities. In this setting,
leader humility could aid in the development of secure
social bonds, interpersonal cooperation, and sense of
belonging. This is supported by a small pilot study in
which new community leaders who responded with IH
during the first few weeks on the job displayed more
servant leadership over time (Krumrei-Mancuso, 2018).
Overview
In two studies, we investigated connections between
leaders’ humility and servant leadership (Studies 1 & 2)
and followers’ ratings of satisfaction with leader perfor­
mance (Study 2). We hypothesized EH and IH would
predict increased servant leadership over time
(Study 1) and EH and IH would predict greater satisfac­
tion with the leader’s performance among followers
(Study 2). Both studies were approved by Pepperdine
University’s Institutional Review Board (Protocol ID: 17–
06-574). Participants were provided with written infor­
mation necessary to give their consent to participate in
the research prior to proceeding to the surveys.
Study 1
The aim of Study 1 was to examine whether EH and IH
would be associated with more servant leadership across
time among a naturally occurring sample of novice com­
munity leaders. We expected this to be the case on the
basis of theory and a pilot study (Krumrei-Mancuso, 2018).
THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 3
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 101 Resident and Spiritual Life
Advisors hired by the Residence Life program of
a Christian university to work 20 hours per week provid­
ing leadership in university campus housing. The
response rate was 95% of the total pool of leaders. The
leaders were students themselves and lived in desig­
nated housing areas where their responsibilities
included building community, developing relationships
with and caring for residents, providing peer counseling,
providing spiritual support, organizing events, attending
staff meetings, completing paperwork, enforcing com­
munity standards, and monitoring the residential area
for safety and maintenance needs. The leaders com­
pleted a 16-day training program prior to commencing
the leadership positions, in which they engaged in team
building; received information about policies, proce­
dures, and expectations; and practiced with applied sce­
narios relevant to their leadership responsibilities.
Although servant leadership is consistent with the over­
all goals of the leadership positions, it was not explicitly
incorporated into the hiring process or addressed during
the training program.
The leaders ranged in age from 18 to 24 years (Mage
= 20.07, SDage = .96). The sample was 65.3% female and
34.7% male, mirroring the student body as a whole. The
sample was 56.4% White, 20.8% Latinx, 14.9% Asian,
13.9% Black or African-American, and 7.9% multi-racial.
Consistent with the hiring goals of the Residence Life
program, all leaders identified as Christian.
Measures
Table 1 summarizes the psychometric properties of
Study 1 measures. For all measures, higher scores indi­
cate greater levels of the construct.
Servant leadership
We made use of the 4-item Altruistic Calling subscale of
the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (Barbuto &
Wheeler, 2006), which reflects core aspects of servant
leadership and is fitting for non-corporate, peer-based
leadership. The scale was designed as an other-report
measure, but used in a self-report format within the
current study (sample item: ‘I do everything I can to
serve my residents.’). Items were rated on a Likert scale
from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree.
Intellectual humility
We used the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale
(Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016) for a broad assessment
4 E. J. KRUMREI-MANCUSO AND W. C. ROWATT
of IH that includes a focus on both intrapsychic and inter­
personal aspects of being intellectually humble. The scale
represents a higher order factor consisting of four sub­
scales: (1) lack of intellectual overconfidence (e.g., ‘When
I am really confident in a belief, there is very little chance
that belief is wrong.’ reverse scored), (2) openness to
revising one’s viewpoint (e.g., ‘I am open to revising my
important beliefs in the face of new information.’), (3)
respect for others’ viewpoints (e.g., ‘I welcome different
ways of thinking about important topics.’), and (4) inde­
pendence of intellect and ego (e.g., ‘When someone con­
tradicts my most important beliefs, it feels like a personal
attack.’ reverse scored). Items were rated on a Likert scale
from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree.
Expressed humility
The Expressed Humility Scale assesses expressed
behaviors demonstrating humility in the context of
organizational leadership (Owens et al., 2013). The
scale was designed as an other-report measure, but
used in a self-report format in the current research.
The scale represents a higher order factor consisting
of three subscales: (1) willingness to view oneself
accurately (e.g., ‘I admit it when I don’t know how
to do something.’), (2) appreciation of others’
strengths and contributions (e.g., ‘I show appreciation
for the unique contributions of others.’), and (3)
teachability (e.g., ‘I am willing to learn from others.’).
Items were rated on a Likert scale from (1) strongly
disagree to (5) strongly agree.
Social desirability
We used three items of the Socially Desirable Response
Set-5 (Hays et al., 1989) to assess participants’ tendency
to respond to survey items in a way deemed favorable
by society. Items were rated on a Likert scale ranging
from (1) definitely false to (5) definitely true.
Procedures
Data were collected at four time points via online
surveys. The first assessment (Time 0) took place
during a leadership training program immediately
prior to the start of the leadership positions. At this
time, we gathered demographic and social desirabil­
ity data. Servant leadership and humility were
assessed at Times 1 through 3. Time 1 data were
collected after 3 weeks of leadership, Time 2 data
were collected after 6 weeks of leadership (3 weeks
after Time 1), and Time 3 data were collected after
6 months of leadership (4.5 months after Time 2). We
made use of multilevel analyses because time points
(level 1) were nested within leaders (level 2).
Results
Preliminary analyses
Table 1 displays descriptive information for the full
sample. We computed repeated measure ANOVAs to
examine the progression of servant leadership and
humility over time among the 92 leaders who com­
pleted measures at all three time points. None of our
variables of interest showed significant change over
time: servant leadership Time 1 (M = 15.93,
SD = 2.78), Time 2 (M = 15.84, SD = 2.88), Time 3
(M = 16.42, SD = 2.67), F (2, 182) = 2.70, p = .07; EH
Time 1 (M = 40.82, SD = 3.82), Time 2 (M = 40.63,
SD = 4.01), Time 3 (M = 40.62, SD = 4.22), F (2,
182) = .16, p = .86; IH Time 1 (M = 85.10, SD = 9.18),
Time 2 (M = 85.34, SD = 9.46), Time 3 (M = 85.20,
SD = 9.61), F (2, 182) = .06, p = .95. Examination of
the three EH and four IH subscales also indicated no
significant change across time (p’s ranging from .17 to
.78) .
Given that EH and IH tap overlapping as well as
unique content, they were strongly correlated (r = .54,
p < .01 at Time 1; r = .52, p < .01 at Time 2; r = .44, p < .01
at Time 3). For this reason, we examined collinearity
statistics at each time point for all subscales of the two
measures, but found that multi-collinearity was not pro­
blematic (Variation Inflation Factors ranging from 1.23 to
3.11 and Tolerance ranging from .32 to .81 across time
points). Based on this we included EH and IH in the same
models in the primary analyses.
We examined EH, IH, and servant leadership differ­
ences on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, age, and
social desirability. The only significant finding was that
t-tests revealed those who identified as Latinx displayed
slightly more EH than individuals who did not identify as
Latinx at Time 1 (M = 41.65 versus 40.51, p = .03) and
Time 3 (M = 42.25 versus 40.28, p = .02). Based on this,
we included ethnicity as a covariate. In addition, we
made an a priori decision to include social desirability
tendencies as a control variable, given that all data were
gathered through self-report.
Leaders’ humility as a predictor of servant
leadership
We used SPSS Advanced Statistics 25 to conduct random
effects linear mixed models to assess associations
between humility and servant leadership, controlling
cluster effects of time (level 1) nested within individuals
(level 2). We used maximum likelihood estimation to
facilitate likelihood ration tests to compare fit between
models.
 THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 5

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of continuous variables per assessment point (Study 1).
Variables N M SD Possible Range Min Max Number of items α
Age (Time 0) 101 20.07 .96 18 24
Social desirability (Time 0) 101 2.84 .50 0–3 0 3 3 .73
Servant leadership (Time 1) 101 16.04 2.77 4–20 8 20 4 .78
Servant leadership (Time 2) 101 15.61 3.10 4–20 5 20 4 .84
Servant leadership (Time 3) 92 16.42 2.67 4–20 7 20 4 .82
Expressed humility
Willingness to view oneself accurately (Time 1) 101 13.04 1.61 3–15 8 15 3 .68
Appreciation of others’ strengths (Time 1) 101 13.78 1.54 3–15 9 15 3 .78
Teachability (Time 1) 101 13.88 1.58 3–15 9 15 3 .90
Willingness to view oneself accurately (Time 2) 101 12.84 1.92 3–15 6 15 3 .78
Appreciation of others’ strengths (Time 2) 101 13.49 1.88 3–15 9 15 3 .87
Teachability (Time 2) 101 13.82 1.68 3–15 9 15 3 .92
Willingness to view oneself accurately (Time 3) 92 13.14 1.75 3–15 8 15 3 .67
Appreciation of others’ strengths (Time 3) 92 13.60 1.70 3–15 9 15 3 .81
Teachability (Time 3) 92 13.88 1.41 3–15 9 15 3 .85
Intellectual humility
Lack of intellectual overconfidence (Time 1) 101 19.08 3.94 6–30 8 30 6 .68
Openness to revising one’s viewpoint (Time 1) 101 20.03 2.85 5–25 14 25 5 .78
Respect for others’ viewpoints (Time 1) 101 27.24 2.67 6–30 18 30 6 .79
Independence of intellect and ego (Time 1) 101 17.98 4.81 5–25 7 25 5 .89
Lack of intellectual overconfidence (Time 2) 101 19.13 3.34 6–30 10 26 6 .65
Openness to revising one’s viewpoint (Time 2) 101 20.25 3.43 5–25 11 25 5 .87
Respect for others’ viewpoints (Time 2) 101 26.91 3.41 6–30 15 30 6 .86
Independence of intellect and ego (Time 2) 101 18.26 4.73 5–25 6 25 5 .91
Lack of intellectual overconfidence (Time 3) 92 18.71 4.00 6–30 6 26 6 .66
Openness to revising one’s viewpoint (Time 3) 92 20.41 2.63 5–25 13 25 5 .76
Respect for others’ viewpoints (Time 3) 92 27.48 2.54 6–30 19 30 6 .81
Independence of intellect and ego (Time 3) 92 18.60 4.84 5–25 5 25 5 .92

We mean centered all continuous variables to
improve interpretability. We also mean centered eth­
nicity, so that the intercept would represent the
value of servant leadership averaged between
Latinx and non-Latinx participants. The covariates
were included as fixed effects in the model. We
used a subject identifier as a random effect to
account for leaders’ inter-individual differences in
servant leadership.
The results are displayed in Table 2. The ICC of the
unconstrained (null) model indicated that 26% of the
variance in servant leadership could be explained by
inter-individual differences of the leaders. In Model 1,
we added variables representing each time point as
fixed effects in the analysis, to evaluate linear trends of
servant leadership. This indicated there was no signifi­
cant change in servant leadership from Time 1 to Time
2 or 3. In Model 2, we added ethnicity and social
desirability as control variables, which did not signifi­
cantly improve model fit (χ2 = .59, p = .74). In Model 3,
we added all subscales of EH and IH. This significantly
improved model fit (χ2 = 47.21, p < .001). Two specific
aspects of humility were predictive of greater servant
leadership. For every unit increase in teachability (a
characteristic of expressed humility), there was a .34
unit increase in servant leadership and for every unit
increase in respect for others’ viewpoints (a
characteristic of intellectual humility), there was a .17
unit increase in servant leadership.
As a local effect size estimate for humility, we exam­
ined the reduction of variance components between
Model 2 and Model 3, to examine how much of the
variance in servant leadership that was attributable to
inter-individual differences of the leaders was accounted
for by adding EH and IH to the model. This indicated that
after taking leaders’ ethnicities and social desirability
response tendencies into account, 15.92% of the var­
iance in leaders’ servant leadership could be accounted
for by humility.
Discussion
In this study, we found positive associations between
humility and servant leadership among novice commu­
nity leaders in the first six-months of a leadership posi­
tion, even when controlling social desirability and
ethnicity. When examining all forms of humility
together, being teachable, an aspect of expressed humi­
lity, was the strongest predictor of servant leadership.
Notably, this involves being willing to learn and take
advice from others, as well as being open to the ideas
of others, which bridges to the concept of IH. Respect for
others’ viewpoints was also associated with more ser­
vant leadership. This is a characteristic of being
6 E. J. KRUMREI-MANCUSO AND W. C. ROWATT

Table 2. Linear mixed model with leader self-rated humility predicting leader self-rated servant leadership (Study 1).
Null Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Fixed effects
Intercept 16.07*** (.23) 16.04*** (.28) 16.04*** (.28) 16.00*** (.26)
Time 2 a −.43 (.29) −.43 (.29) −.31 (.26)
Time 3 a .36 (.26) .36 (.26) .41 (.26)
Ethnicity .28 (.63) −.10 (.59)
Social desirability .27 (.48) .21 (.44)
Willingness to view oneself accurately −.11 (.11)
Appreciation of others’ strengths .24 (.12)
Teachability .34* (.13)
Lack of intellectual overconfidence −.03 (.04)
Openness to revising one’s viewpoint .09 (.06)
Respect for others’ viewpoints .17* (.07)
Independence of intellect and ego −.03 (.04)
Variance components
Intercept 4.18*** (.79) 4.23*** (.79) 4.19*** (.78) 3.52*** (.66)
Model summary
ICC .26 .27 .27 .27
Parameters 5 7 9 16
χ2 Model 1 – Model 2 7.46* .59 47.21***
Note. N = 294. Coefficients are unstandardized and followed by standard errors in parentheses. All predictors/covariates were grand mean centered.
ICC = intraclass correlation coefficient.
a
Compared to Time 1.
* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

intellectually humble that involves appreciating that
there are diverse ways of thinking about topics as well
as the ability to respect individuals who think differently
from oneself. The relatively stronger covariance with
servant leadership of the EH subscale than the IH sub­
scale may be due to the fact that the measures of EH and
servant leadership focus more on behaviors than the
measure of IH, which includes items about beliefs and
attitudes, in addition to behaviors.
A humility-servant leadership connection fits with
existing literature on the role of servant-leadership
(Spears, 2010) and humility (Owens et al., 2013) in orga­
nizations. Further, EH and IH were not associated with
social desirability, which is consistent with studies show­
ing comprehensive measures of IH are negligibly corre­
lated with desirable responding (Haggard et al., 2018;
Leary et al., 2017).
We found small ethnic differences in humility, which
could be explored in future research in the context of
cultural humility (Hook et al., 2013). We were unable to
locate any other empirical research about humility in
Latinx communities or racial-ethnic differences in EH.
Use of a naturally-occurring sample of leaders and the
longitudinal design are strengths of Study 1, however,
we did not find systematic change in self-reported humi­
lity or servant leadership across time. The community
leader training program was not explicitly designed to
increase humility or servant leadership, and the six-
month interval may not have been long enough to
observe naturally occurring changes in these variables.
A previous study examining whether teaching IH in
a college course or not would increase IH also observed
that self-reported IH did not increase over time, but
peer-rated IH did increase over time (Meagher et al.,
2019). Exclusive reliance on self-report is a limitation of
Study 1. In Study 2, we examined whether leaders’ self-
reported humility would predict followers’ estimates of
their leaders’ servant leadership and followers’ reports of
their satisfaction with their leaders’ job performance.
Study 2
Study 2 had two aims. First, we examined whether the
relationship between humility and servant leadership
from Study 1 would persist when using followers’ ratings
of their leaders’ servant leadership rather than leaders’
self-reported servant leadership.
Second, we investigated whether leaders’ humility
would predict followers’ satisfaction with their leaders’
performance. We expected this to be the case in light of
previous studies showing connections between leader
humility and ratings of leaders’ job performance
(Johnson et al., 2011; Owens et al., 2013). We used
several dimensions of followers’ satisfaction with
a leader as indicators of leader performance (i.e., satis­
faction with the leaders’ administrative leadership, inter­
personal leadership, and justice orientation).
Method
Participants
During the academic semester in which the leaders
completed their 6-month follow-up assessment for

Study 1 (Time 3), campus residents (subsequently
referred to as ‘followers’) were surveyed about their
campus leaders (six weeks after Study 1, Time 3 data
collection). Leaders from Study 1 who received ratings
from campus residents in the followers' survey were
included in Study 2. This consisted of 78 of the leaders
from Study 1. T-test indicated no differences in servant
leadership, EH, or IH between the leaders from Study 1
who were and were not included in Study 2 (p’s ranging
from .30 to .99). The leaders in Study 2 ranged in age
from 18 to 24 years (Mage = 20.12, SDage = .97). The
leaders identified as 59% female and 33.3% male.
Racially, 52.6% identified as White, 15.4% as Asian,
15.4% as Black or African American, and 10.3% as multi-
racial. In addition, 12.8% of the leaders identified as
Latinx.
The leaders were rated by 215 followers, with an
average of 2.76 raters per leader (SD = 1.86). The raters
were 54.3% female and 33.3% male. Racially, 56.4% of
the followers identified as White, 18.5% as Asian, 8.6% as
Black or African American, 2.5% as Native Hawaiian or
other Pacific Islander, and 2.1% as American Indian or
Alaska Native. An additional 14.4% of the followers iden­
tified as Latinx. The raters were 45.3% first-year students,
14.0% second-year, 14.4% third-year, 8.2% fourth-year,
and 6.6% graduate students. In addition, 6.2% indicated
they were international students.
Measures
Table 3 summarizes the psychometric properties of the
measures used in Study 2. For all measures, higher scores
indicated greater levels of the construct.
Humility
We used the Study 1, Time 3 administrations of the
Expressed Humility Scale (Owens et al., 2013) and the
Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale (Krumrei-
Mancuso & Rouse, 2016) as assessments of leaders’ self-
reported EH and IH, respectively.
Servant leadership
Followers rated their respective leaders on servant lea­
dership with the Altruistic Calling subscale of the Servant
Leadership Questionnaire described in Study 1 (Barbuto
& Wheeler, 2006; sample item: ‘This leader does every­
thing he/she can to serve me.’). Items were rated on
a Likert scale from (1) strongly disagree to (7) strongly
agree.
Satisfaction with leader’s performance
To evaluate leader performance, we used items com­
pleted by followers as part of the national housing and
THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 7
residence life survey administered by Skyfactor
Benchworks. On the basis of theory, we created three
categories of leadership represented within the items.
A group of four researchers and staff members of
Residence Life independently rated each of the items
for category fit. This resulted in the following subscales:
(1) satisfaction with the leader’s administrative leader­
ship (e.g.,: ‘How satisfied are you with your leader’s
enforcement of policies?’), (2) satisfaction with the lea­
der’s interpersonal leadership (e.g.,: ‘How satisfied are
you with your leader’s efforts to get to know you?’),
and (3) satisfaction with the leader’s justice orientation
(e.g.,: ‘How satisfied are you with your leader’s promo­
tion of tolerance of others?’). Items were rated on a Likert
scale from (1) strongly disagree to (7) strongly agree.
We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis in Mplus
version 8 (N = 514), which indicated a model with the
three theoretically derived latent variables (administra­
tive leadership, interpersonal leadership, and justice
orientation) provided reasonable fit to the data:
χ2 = 86.23 (p < .05), RMSEA = .09, CFI = .98, TLI = .97,
SRMR = .02. Further, this three factor model fit the data
better than a single factor with the same items (AIC of
11,743.05 for the single factor model versus 11,621.93 for
the three factor model and BIC of 11,844.86 for the single
factor model versus 11,736.47 for the three factor
model).
Procedures
Data were collected via online surveys. Followers
rated their leaders in conjunction with a campus-
wide survey used to assess students’ university and
housing experiences. For the purpose of the current
study, a supplement was added to the standard sur­
vey inviting followers to identify the leader in their
housing area they knew best and complete measures
about this leader. We made use of the leaders’ self-
reported EH and IH assessed at Time 3 of Study 1, as
this assessment of humility was gathered in the same
academic semester in which the followers completed
their survey about their leaders. Followers rated their
leaders six weeks after the leaders provided their self-
ratings. We made use of multilevel analyses because
followers’ reports (level 1) were nested within leaders
(level 2).
Results
Preliminary analyses
Descriptive statistics of the study variables are provided
in Table 3. We examined EH, IH, and servant leadership
8 E. J. KRUMREI-MANCUSO AND W. C. ROWATT

Table 3. Descriptive statistics of continuous variables (Study 2).

N M SD Possible Range Min Max Number of items α
Variables reported by leaders
Leader expressed humility
Willingness to view oneself accurately 78 13.28 1.65 3–15 8 15 3 .64
Appreciation of others’ strengths 78 13.57 1.57 3–15 9 15 3 .79
Teachability 78 13.87 1.34 3–15 10 15 3 .83
Leader intellectual humility
Lack of intellectual overconfidence 78 18.64 3.93 6–30 6 26 6 .63
Openness to revising one’s viewpoint 78 20.58 2.42 5–25 14 25 5 .74
Respect for others’ viewpoints 78 27.41 2.50 6–30 19 30 6 .81
Independence of intellect and ego 78 18.52 4.96 5–25 5 25 5 .92
Variables reported by followers
Servant leadership of leader 195 23.91 4.64 4–28 7 28 4 .95
Satisfaction with administrative leadership 197 18.02 4.06 3–21 3 21 3 .91
Satisfaction with interpersonal leadership 200 17.96 4.02 3–21 3 21 3 .91
Satisfaction with justice orientation of leader 194 12.41 2.74 2–14 2 14 2 .90 a
a
Spearman-Brown Coefficient

differences on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, age,
and social desirability. Similar to Study 1, a t-test
revealed that those who identified as Latinx displayed
slightly more EH than individuals who did not identify as
Latinx (M = 42.72 versus 40.11, p < .001). Based on this,
we included ethnicity as a covariate in the primary ana­
lyses. No other differences were observed for EH, IH, or
servant leadership on the basis of demographic factors
or social desirability tendencies.
Leader-rated humility as a predictor of
follower-reported outcomes
We used SPSS Advanced Statistics 25 to conduct random
effects linear mixed models to examine whether the self-
reported humility of leaders (level 2) was predictive of
a number of follower-reported outcomes (level 1),
including followers’ experience of their leader as
a servant leader and followers’ satisfaction with the
leader’s performance. We used maximum likelihood esti­
mation to facilitate likelihood ration tests to compare fit
between models. We followed similar procedures to
Study 1, including grand mean centering all variables
to improve interpretability.
The results are displayed in Table 4. The ICCs of the
unconstrained (null) models indicated that 7% to 29% of
the variance in the outcomes could be explained by
inter-individual differences between the leaders. This is
fairly consistent with previous research, where ICC
values in cross-sectional multilevel modeling in the
social sciences tend to range from .05 to .20 (Peugh,
2010). In Model 1, we added leader ethnicity (level 2)
as a control variable with fixed effects, which did not
significantly improve model fit. In Model 2, we added our
assessed characteristics of EH and IH. This significantly
improved model fit for each outcome.
As a local effect size estimate for humility, we exam­
ined the reduction of variance components between
Model 1 and Model 2, to examine how much of the
variance in each outcome attributable to the clusters of
followers rating each leader could be accounted for by
the leaders’ EH and IH. This indicated that after taking
leaders’ ethnicities into account, 51.72% of the variance
in follower ratings of leaders’ servant leadership could
be accounted for by leader humility, 66.09% of the var­
iance in follower satisfaction with leaders’ administrative
leadership could be accounted for by leader humility, all
of the variance in follower satisfaction with leaders’
interpersonal leadership could be accounted for by lea­
der humility, and 34.59% of the variance in follower
satisfaction with leaders’ justice orientation could be
accounted for by leader humility.
With ethnicity and all forms of humility as covariates
in the model, only respect for others’ viewpoints, a
characteristic of being IH, was a significant predictor of
followers’ satisfaction with leaders’ leadership.
Specifically, for every unit increase in leaders’ respect
for others’ viewpoints, there was a .45 unit increase in
followers’ satisfaction with leaders’ interpersonal leader­
ship and a .41 unit increase in followers’ satisfaction with
leaders’ justice orientation.
Discussion
Although leader-reported humility was not predictive of
followers’ ratings of leaders’ servant leadership, it was pre­
dictive of greater satisfaction among followers with their
leaders’ performance. As might be expected on the basis
of the social bonding and social oil hypotheses of humility
(Van Tongeren et al., 2019), leader humility was relevant to
followers’ ratings of the social aspect of leadership and how
leaders treated their followers (e.g., getting to know
 THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 9

followers, helping them, treating everyone fairly) rather than
administrative aspects of leadership (e.g., being organized,
enforcing rules and policies). Notably, out of all assessed
aspects of expressed and intellectual humility, leaders hav­
ing respect for diverse viewpoints stood out as the strongest
predictor of followers’ satisfaction with leaders’
performance.
To build on these findings, future research could investi­
gate whether a relational humility measure (Davis et al.,
2011) or peer-ratings of humility predict followers' or super­
visors' ratings of leader performance. Further, with a higher
number of raters, round-robin methods could be used to
tease apart unique relationship effects or to see if there is
consensus among multiple peers about a leader’s humility
(Meagher et al., 2015). Leaders’ influence may rise when
there is a clear consensus among followers about
a leader’s humility and effectiveness.
General discussion
Drawing on longitudinal and multi-reporter research
designs among novice community leaders, our stu­
dies showed moderate, positive associations
between aspects of leader-reported humility and
leader-reported servant-leadership, as well as fol­
lower-reported satisfaction with leaders. Although
leader-reported humility was predictive of leader-
reported servant leadership in Study 1, this did not
replicate with followers’ ratings of leaders’ servant
leadership in Study 2. The self-other knowledge
asymmetry model helps explain how some charac­
teristics are perceived better by oneself compared to
others (Vazire, 2010). Perhaps the altruistic calling
component of servant leadership is more difficult
for followers to discern in leaders than for leaders
to self-assess (e.g., whether the leader sacrifices his/
her own interests to meet the needs of followers).
Future research would benefit from assessing more
aspects of servant leadership to confirm whether the
relationship between humility and servant leadership
can transcend common method variance.
The aspects of humility most relevant to leadership
outcomes were teachability (Study 1) and being able to
appreciate diversity of thought (Studies 1 and 2). Thus,
these two qualities may be particularly valuable for
young community leaders working among peers. The

Table 4. Linear mixed model with leader self-rated expressed and intellectual humility predicting follower-reported outcomes
(Study 2).
Follower’s satisfaction with Follower’s satisfaction with
Follower-reported servant leader’s administrative leader’s interpersonal Follower’s satisfaction with
leadership of leader leadership leadership leader’s justice orientation
Null Model 1 Model 2 Null Model 1 Model 2 Null Model 1 Model 2 Null Model 1 Model 2
Fixed effects
Intercept 23.82*** 23.85*** 23.82*** 17.87*** 17.88*** 17.83*** 17.87*** 17.88*** 17.92*** 12.28*** 12.31*** 12.28***
(.37) (.36) (.36) (.35) (.34) (.32) (.31) (.30) (.30) (.25) (.25) (.24)
Leader ethnicity −2.24 −2.91* −.68 −1.46 −1.29 −1.61 −1.10 −1.34
(1.24) (1.29) (1.24) (1.19) (1.06) (1.07) (.81) (.81)
Willingness to view .04 (.34) −.01 (.31) −.13 (.28) −.15
oneself (.23)
accurately
Appreciation of −.40 (.36) .22 (.31) −.12 (.28) −.07
others’ strengths (.23)
Teachability .51 (.43) −.52 (.39) −.18 (.35) −.12
(.29)
Lack of intellectual −.06 (.11) .16 (.09) .12 (.09) .08 (.07)
overconfidence
Openness to −.19 (.18) −.14 (.17) −.01 (.16) −.03
revising one’s (.12)
viewpoint
Respect for others’ .26 (.24) .40 (.22) .45* (.20) .41* (.17)
viewpoints
Independence of .16 (.09) −.01 (.08) −.01 (.08) −.01
intellect and ego (.06)
Variance
components
Intercept 2.26 1.83 .89 (1.64) 3.02 2.96 1.00 1.11 .99 (1.30) .00 (.00) 2.22* 2.07* 1.35 (.90)
(1.74) (1.64) (1.66) (1.66) (1.50) (1.31) (.93) (.91)
Model summary
ICC .11 .09 .04 .18 .18 .06 .07 .06 .00 .29 .27 .19
Parameters 3 4 11 3 4 11 3 4 11 3 4 11
χ2 Model 1 – 3.17 112.25*** .31 106.20*** 1.47 105.70*** 1.81 83.36***
Model 2
Note. Coefficients are unstandardized and followed by standard errors in parentheses. All predictors/covariates were grand mean centered. ICC = intraclass
correlation coefficient.
* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.
10 E. J. KRUMREI-MANCUSO AND W. C. ROWATT
fact that respect for others’ viewpoints was robust in
predicting leadership outcomes compared to more gen­
eral appreciation for others’ strengths highlights the
relevance of humility in the domain of knowledge for
beneficial leadership outcomes.
Given the observed connections between these
aspects of leader humility, servant leadership, and fol­
lowers’ satisfaction with the leadership, it could be use­
ful for future research to begin laying a foundation for
cultivating humility in community leaders or leaders in
other peer-based service roles. Studies could examine
situations in which leaders are more or less successful
being humble in order to develop exercises and activ­
ities aimed at nurturing humility. In a small study, stu­
dents who completed a weeks-long workbook-style
humility intervention (n = 26) reported increased humi­
lity-modesty, forgiveness, and patience (but not self-
control) compared to students in the control condition
(n = 33; Lavelock et al., 2014). Although encouraging and
an important start, more intervention studies are needed
that address EH and IH rather than behavioral modesty,
which is distinct from humility (Davis et al., 2010).
Research validating interventions for developing IH is
in its early stages. Short-term interventions aimed at
boosting wisdom via perspective-taking appear to
increase IH (see Kross & Grossmann, 2012) and college
classes with an emphasis on IH appear to increase peer-
reported IH (Meagher et al., 2019). Intervention studies
that focus on leadership contexts would be useful.
Given the Study 1 links between leader humility and
servant leadership and the Study 2 links between leader
humility and followers’ satisfaction with leaders, future
research could explore whether servant leadership med­
iates links between leader humility and followers’ satis­
faction with leaders. The literature provides a substantial
basis from which to expect servant leadership may result
in favorable ratings of leaders (e.g., Hoch et al., 2018;
Sousa & Van Dierendonck, 2017; Van Dierendonck,
2011). Thus, servant leadership could be an explanatory
mechanism by which leader humility results in greater
follower satisfaction with leadership.
The current research raises additional questions
about the role of leader EH and IH, such as whether
leader humility may be associated with follower or orga­
nizational well-being, questions that may be examined
in university contexts by exploring indicators such as
campus morale or year-to-year retention rates. If humi­
lity strengthens relational bonds (see Van Tongeren
et al., 2019), it could be connected to individual well­
being through reduced conflict or stress. For example, in
other contexts, humility appears to buffer negative
effects of stressful life events on indicators of distress
and lower well-being (Krause et al., 2016). In a university
context, humility among peer-leaders may make them
more approachable or patient, which could decrease
resident stress and increase indicators of organizational
culture and health (i.e., trust, perceived social support,
satisfaction). Further, research has indicated that humi­
lity is particularly relevant to job performance when
individuals are working with challenging clients
(Johnson et al., 2011). To the degree that some college
students living in residential dorms could be challenging
to work with, selecting or developing humble, non-
defensive community leaders could help smooth inter­
actions and resolve interpersonal conflicts.
Self-other ratings of humility
With regard to measurement, because humility in
general, and IH in particular, involves inner thoughts,
beliefs, and attitudes, self-reported humility can be
very informative (cf. Vazire, 2010). The current
research highlighted that self-reported humility was
not only predictive of a self-reported outcome
(Study 1), but also predictive of some other-reported
outcomes (Study 2). The size of the relationship
between self-reported respect for others’ viewpoints,
a characteristic of being intellectually humble, and
other-reported leadership outcomes in the current
research (B = .41 – .45) was greater in magnitude
than some relationships observed in other multi-
method humility studies where full scale humility
scores were used. For example, among health care
employees who work with challenging clients,
employee self-reported honesty-humility predicted
supervisor ratings of employees’ job performance
(B = .18; Johnson et al., 2011) and among participants
who interacted in small groups, self-reported IH
related to peer-reported openness (r = .33; Meagher
et al., 2021).
In our examination of multiple forms of self-reported
humility together in one model, many of them were not
significant in predicting leadership outcomes. This may
be due to some forms of humility being more robust
than others in relation to leadership, however, it may
also be that some forms of humility would be better
assessed via the report of individuals or groups who
know leaders well rather than through self-report.
Expressed humility, specifically, was designed to be
rated by informant reporters.
Trait, state, or domain-specific humility
Further, it is important to note that we assessed EH and
IH as relatively enduring traits. However, humility could
be experienced as a momentary state (Chancellor &

Lyubomirsky, 2013; Kruse et al., 2017) or with regard to
some domains of knowledge, but not others (Hoyle
et al., 2016). For example, leaders could be humble
about their religious or political views, but not express
humility about a decision that resulted in an organiza­
tional failure. Viewing leadership as one’s area of exper­
tise could make it particularly challenging to be humble
about one’s leadership. Yet, humility specific to leader­
ship knowledge, skills, and abilities could be relevant in
promoting servant leadership and increasing leadership
effectiveness.
Organizational settings and roles
Although we are cautiously optimistic about the value of
humility in leaders, it is important not to overgeneralize
our findings or draw conclusions about EH/IH in all leader­
ship contexts. Our research was conducted on the campus
of a private Christian university among students who were
carefully selected and trained for peer-leadership posi­
tions. Further, given that the leaders identified as
Christian, their religious values may have influenced their
understanding of the concepts of humility and their desire
to be humble and service-oriented leaders. Future
research is needed to establish whether these findings
would replicate among leaders at public universities, peer-
leaders in other positions (e.g., student government), or
more seasoned leaders in public and private sectors.
In addition, although we frame humility as a positive
quality in the context of community leadership in
a university residential setting, there are leadership con­
texts or roles in which humility might not be as relevant
or beneficial. A social perception seems to be that humi­
lity is more useful for religious leaders and less useful for
jobs that require self-promotion (e.g., entertainer, sales;
see Exline & Geyer, 2004). In fact, several measures of
humility correlate negatively with the exhibitionistic ten­
dency (Rowatt et al., 2006), therefore questions remain
about the value of humility for leaders whose roles
require them to be the center of attention, energize
a crowd, or be especially charismatic. On the other
hand, humility may be one key to success in leadership
contexts that require teamwork, resolving interpersonal
issues, and guiding followers.
Conclusions
We suspect the most effective leaders are able to discern
how to express humility at the right time and place and
in the right amount (e.g., see Whitcomb et al., 2015).
Future research is needed to assess humility in more
nuanced ways – such as a golden mean between the
two extremes of servility and arrogance (Battaly &
THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 11
Nichols, 2016). Behavioral measures are also needed,
such as assessing when leaders acknowledge limits or
revise views after examining evidence (Haggard et al.,
2018; Ng & Tay, 2020). Capturing humility in the moment
will require creative methods and measurement techni­
ques in real-life contexts or in situations where humility
is strained. The current research indicates that when
a leader exhibits certain forms of humility, this can aid
in putting followers and their needs at the forefront and
can contribute to followers’ satisfaction with interperso­
nal aspects of the leader’s performance. Future research
may examine if there are additional beneficial down­
stream effects of leader humility.
Disclosure statement
We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Funding
This paper was supported by a generous grant from the John
Templeton Foundation, Grant No. 60622, Developing Humility
in Leaders.
ORCID
Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso http://orcid.org/0000-0001-
6151-7845
Wade C. Rowatt http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6257-5550
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