No one wants to take advice from a know-it-all. You want your leaders to be confident, but when does it cross the line? Servant leaders should also be humble. Being a humble leader means that you can accept your mistakes and learn from others as well as being able to speak into your area of expertise. Humility and confidence are not at odds. Being a leader who can be humble with confidence builds your Referent Power and helps you be trustworthy.
Expert Influence
One of the five types of influence is Expert Power. You gain Expert Power by being knowledgeable in your field, and you lose Expert Power by pretending to know things you don’t. Sometimes we can be tricked into thinking that we need to know everything. But it’s actually more powerful to admit “I don’t know” instead of pretending to have an answer that may come back to bite you.
Having the confidence to admit when something is beyond your Expert Power surprisingly increases your Expert Power! This is because it proves you to be trustworthy, so that people know if you do provide them with information that it is reliable. Being reliable also helps build your Referent Power.
Referent Power
Referent Power is a type of influence gained by following your values and living your life in a way that others want to emulate. It is the most influential type of power. Think about your heroes; people you want to be like. They have Referent Power over you.
The tricky thing about Referent Power is that you cannot gain it by trying to be more influential. You only gain it by proving yourself to be capable of stewarding that influence well. You gain it by earning people’s trust over time.
A Trustworthy Leader
You want your leaders to be people you can trust. You want to know that they’re not going to make up information to tell you or pretend to know or be able to do something that they can’t. Being a trustworthy leader is an important part of being a humble leader.
Humility and confidence are not opposites. Being humble enough to learn from others displays a confidence in knowing that your worth is not tied up in what you know. Confidence with humility also helps you be a trustworthy and reliable person. Build your Expert and Referent Power by leading with humility.
Gracie McBride is the Content and Systems Development Coordinator at The Crossroad.
