Walk Into Any Leadership Conference and Try This Experiment

Read through the conference program. What do you see?

247 breakout sessions on "executive presence." 3 on humility.

And those three? Empty rooms at 3 PM on Friday when everyone's already at the airport bar calculating if they can make the earlier flight.

Nobody flies to San Diego to learn how to look less certain.

Here's the data that should terrify you: 73% of educational leaders in our 987-team study privately admit they're making it up as they go. Yet 94% project absolute certainty in public—in board meetings, cabinet sessions, and all-staff addresses where doubt would be career suicide.

That 21-point gap between private reality and public performance? That's not strategic leadership. That's organizational theater. And it's costing you the one thing that actually multiplies team capacity.

A cultural analyst recently said something that stopped me cold: "Humility has come under attack in our society. Self-effacement became identified with weakness. A different ethos took over—expressive individualism. Salvation is now found through intimate contact with oneself and exposing the power within."

In plain English: We've trained leaders to believe their job is managing their personal brand, not developing their team's collective intelligence.

We built an entire leadership development industry around projecting strength. Then we wonder why our teams can't think together under pressure.

Here's what nobody tells you at those conferences (because vulnerability doesn't sell tickets): The superintendents and presidents whose teams actually multiply capacity—who turn 8 people into what feels like 25—they've figured out something the confident performers haven't.

They've learned that certainty kills curiosity. That "I don't know" opens more doors than "trust me." That the leader who admits confusion creates space for collective problem-solving, while the leader who fakes clarity creates teams that wait for orders.

The paradox: Strong teams aren't built by strong leaders performing strength. They're built by secure leaders practicing humility.

Your turn: When's the last time you doubled down on a position in a meeting—not because you believed it, but because changing your mind would look weak? Drop a number in the comments: how many times THIS YEAR has that happened?

(I'll start: At least 4. Maybe 6. Definitely more than I want you to know about.)

THE DIAGNOSIS: Why Smart Leaders Fight Like Street Gangs (And Don't Even Know It)

Let's talk about this like adults who've survived multiple board presentations where you had to defend decisions you weren't entirely sure about while projecting absolute conviction the entire time.

Here's what actually happened in your last cabinet meeting (the real version, not the minutes):

Scenario 1: The Territorial Defense

Someone advocated for their position way more forcefully than the data warranted. Not because they were certain they were right. Because they needed to win. Their credibility felt at stake in front of peers.

In K-12: Your Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum can't let the Assistant Superintendent for Finance "win" the budget allocation argument—even when Finance's numbers are solid—because losing feels like professional diminishment.

In Higher Ed: Your Dean of Liberal Arts can't concede that the Dean of Business has a valid enrollment strategy point, because agreement feels like surrender, and surrender feels like irrelevance.

Scenario 2: The Defensive Recoil

Someone received actually useful feedback and reacted like they'd been personally attacked. You watched them shut down, get defensive, or start building the counterargument before the feedback was even finished.

Scenario 3: The Subtle Undermining

Someone couldn't just let their colleague's good idea stand on its own. They had to add a qualifier. Point out a flaw. Subtly reposition it so their own contribution felt equally important.

You've seen this. You've probably done this. (I definitely have.)

Scenario 4: The Performance

Everyone nodded agreement during the meeting. Then three separate people texted their real thoughts to someone NOT in the room afterward.

You built a team that performs collaboration but practices competition.

And here's what nobody wants to say out loud: This isn't because you hired bad people. This is because you hired humans.

The Root Cause Nobody Names

Here's the uncomfortable diagnosis, and I'm going to be direct because I spent 25 years in the loneliness of the senior leadership seat:

We live in a state of cosmic insecurity.

Stay with me for 60 seconds before you dismiss this as psychobabble.

Think about street gangs. Young men who don't feel valued by society or their families. They walk down the street, and if you slight them even slightly, they'll pummel you. Why? Because they're what the ancient Greeks called "glory empty"—desperately hungry for respect, for validation, for assurance that they matter.

You're thinking: "Well sure, but that's THEM. They have self-esteem issues."

Except for those who study history, nation-states have always acted exactly like street gangs. Slight them diplomatically, and they go to war. Why? Because nations are just collections of glory-empty humans operating collectively the same way they operate individually.

And your cabinet? Your leadership team? Same dynamics. Just with better credentials and conference rooms instead of street corners.

Why? Here's the brutal truth:

We were made to live in the presence of something transcendent that gave us permanent, unshakeable worth. But we've built a professional culture where worth is temporary, conditional, and constantly up for negotiation.

So we fight. For recognition. For credit. For assurance that we're not ephemeral. That we won't be forgotten. That we matter.

A leadership writer captured it perfectly: "Pride in the spiritual sense is refusal to let anything greater than yourself define your worth. It's grabbing ultimate status for yourself—wishing to be self-sufficient, relying only on your own resources. That is the greatest illusion, the cosmic delusion that we can make it as our own gods. Which leaves us empty at the center."

Empty at the center.

So we swagger. We bluff. We attack anyone who threatens our fragile sense that we're real. We use people as buttresses for shaky egos. Life becomes a constant battle to prove we count.

And leadership teams become battlegrounds dressed up as strategic planning sessions.

(This is actually why I created The GROUP—a free community where we stop performing leadership and start practicing actual team development together. Where we name this stuff instead of pretending it doesn't exist. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

I know the loneliness of being the only person in the room who sees this pattern. Of wondering if YOU'RE the problem because surely other leadership teams don't operate like a group project where everyone's protecting their territory. Comment "LONELY" if you've ever felt like the only person who sees how dysfunctional the dynamics actually are.

THE FRAMEWORK: What Humility Actually Is (And Why Ancient Wisdom Demolishes Modern Leadership Theory)

Call this the Humility Architecture. Or don't. It'll still explain why your cabinet of brilliant individuals produces mediocre collective results.

Here's what nobody tells you at leadership conferences: In ancient Greco-Roman culture, humility wasn't a virtue—it was an insult.

The Greek word tapeinophrosyne meant "lowliness of mind"—the disposition of a slave. That entire civilization was built on a hierarchy where strength commanded, weakness obeyed, and humility was literally the posture of the conquered.

Social order rested on power and fear. Leaders projected dominance. Humility was career death—if you even had a career.

Then Christianity showed up and flipped the entire script.

Suddenly, the guy washing his disciples' feet was the model of leadership. "Blessed are the meek" became revolutionary philosophy. The last shall be first. The greatest among you must be a servant.

This wasn't just religious teaching—it was a civilizational operating system upgrade.

Within a few centuries, humility transformed from slave-virtue to leadership virtue. Western culture's entire conception of moral authority shifted from "power over others" to "service to others."

(Yes, Christians spent the next 2,000 years frequently forgetting this and building their own power hierarchies. The irony is not lost on me. But the philosophical shift stuck—humility became something worth aspiring to, not hiding.)

Fast forward to 1982.

That's when the modern self-esteem movement launched in California—naturally—with a state task force literally titled "Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility."

The pendulum swung hard. Humility became confused with low self-esteem. Confidence became the currency. "Believe in yourself" replaced "know yourself." We went from servant leadership back to... well, basically Greco-Roman leadership with better presentation decks.

By the 2000s, we'd completed the regression: Leadership development became about executive presence, personal branding, and projecting certainty. Admitting "I don't know" became weakness. Changing your mind became flip-flopping.

We reverse-engineered our way back to ancient Rome, except now leaders wear Patagonia vests instead of togas.

Here's the thing that changes everything: The teams that actually work—the ones that multiply capacity instead of just adding headcount—they're operating on the ancient Christian model, not the modern confidence model.

They've figured out what took Western civilization 400 years to learn the first time: Humility isn't weakness. It's the foundation of collective intelligence.

When leaders practice genuine humility—not false modesty, not performative self-deprecation, but actual "I might be wrong about this" openness—something shifts. Teams stop performing agreement and start thinking together.

The leader who says "I'm certain" creates followers.

The leader who says "I'm uncertain, let's figure this out" creates thinkers.

One builds a reporting structure. One builds a team.

The ancient Greeks would have called the second leader weak. They'd also be confused about why that leader's "weak" team is outperforming everyone else's "strong" one.

Turns out civilizational wisdom was right the first time.

Let me give you four diagnostic tools—four things humility is NOT. Which means if you're doing these things, you're operating in pride (even if it doesn't feel like it):

1. HUMILITY IS THE OPPOSITE OF DRIVENNESS

Be careful here. You can be passionate, hardworking, and pursuing excellence because you genuinely love what you're doing. That's not drivenness.

Drivenness is when your competitiveness comes from an inner vacuum rather than outer joy.

The test: If your colleague achieves the breakthrough you've been working toward, are you almost as genuinely happy as if you'd achieved it yourself? Or does their success somehow diminish yours?

One philosopher nailed it: "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something—only having MORE of it than the next person. You're not proud of being intelligent until you're more intelligent than your colleagues. Pride is comparative. It's the pleasure of being above the rest."

Observable reality in your cabinet:

• The person who can't celebrate anyone else's wins without adding their own accomplishment to the conversation
• Who tracks whose ideas get implemented more frequently
• Who measures their worth by comparing their impact to everyone else's
• Who's always restless, always unhappy with their performance, always needing the next win to feel okay

In K-12: The principal who can't let another principal's building outperform theirs without finding ways to explain why it doesn't really count. The assistant superintendent who subtly undermines district initiatives that didn't originate in their portfolio.

In Higher Ed: The dean who can't acknowledge another college's enrollment success without mentioning that college's "different circumstances" or "lower standards." The VP who literally tracks which recommendations the president implements most frequently.

If you're driven, restless, always competing—you're not pursuing excellence. You're medicating emptiness.

Humility is content. Not complacent—content. Massive difference.

2. HUMILITY IS THE OPPOSITE OF SCORNFULNESS

Treating others with contempt—jeering, ridiculing, the constant sarcastic put-down—is always a manifestation of pride.

Why? Because you're putting people down (notice that's literally the metaphor we use), so you can position yourself above them.

Humility means treating everyone—especially those who are less credentialed than you or opposed to your position—with courtesy, grace, and respect. Always.

Observable reality:

• The leader whose default response to opposing viewpoints is mockery
• Who uses humor as a weapon
• Who needs others to be wrong so they can feel right
• Whose meeting contributions regularly include subtle digs at colleagues' intelligence or competence

Quick diagnostic: Do your "jokes" about team members make them smaller so you can feel bigger?

3. HUMILITY IS THE OPPOSITE OF WILLFULNESS

One writer observed: "Spiritually proud people are always absolutely sure of every point of their beliefs."

Proud people cannot admit they're wrong. Can't take advice. Can't take correction. They don't like repenting—and when they do, it's always under duress. They're not teachable. They're not open to changing their minds. They don't actually listen.

Observable reality:

• That cabinet member who has never once said, "You know what? I was completely wrong about that."
• Who interprets every piece of feedback as a personal attack
• Who treats correction as disrespect
• Who can't distinguish between "your idea needs refinement" and "you are inadequate as a person"

The test: When was the last time you admitted you were completely wrong about something you were certain you were right about?

Not "I could have communicated better" (that's not admitting you were wrong—that's blaming communication). I mean, actually, substantively wrong.

If you can't remember? That's diagnostic.

4. HUMILITY IS THE OPPOSITE OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

This is the sneaky one. Because we almost always think proud people are arrogant—self-promoters who constantly brag, with superiority complexes.

But pride manifests just as powerfully through inferiority feelings.

Because ultimately, pride is insecurity—this desperate need for honor, this hunger for glory. And that expresses itself as much through self-doubt as through self-promotion.

If you're always doubting yourself, always beating yourself up, if you're terrified of compliments or attention, it's because you're just as painfully self-aware as the arrogant person. You're just as absorbed in thinking about yourself. You're just looking through a different lens.

Here's the insight that changes everything:

Real humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's not thinking more of yourself. It's thinking of yourself LESS.

Self-forgetfulness. Not self-hatred. Not self-promotion. Self-forgetfulness.

The Body Part Test

When do you think about your elbow? Only when something's wrong with it. When it's functioning properly, you never think about your elbow at all.

Now think about your ego, your sense of self.

If you were psychologically healthy, you wouldn't constantly think about:

• How you're doing
• How you're looking
• What people are saying about you
• Whether that person respects you
• How you came across in that meeting

You'd be thinking about other things—your mission, your team, the people you serve, the problems you're solving.

But instead, you're always monitoring yourself. Getting your feelings hurt. Feeling slighted. Wondering if that person likes you. Replaying conversations to analyze your performance.

Why? Because something's wrong with your ego. Just like something's wrong with your elbow when you can't stop thinking about it.

We're not healthy. We're glory-empty. And as a result, we're filled with drivenness, scornfulness, willfulness, and self-consciousness.

Which of these four is your primary struggle? Comment just the word—drivenness, scornfulness, willfulness, or self-consciousness. No explanation needed. (Notice how hard even THAT admission is? That difficulty is itself diagnostic.)

THE CASE STUDY: The President Who Stopped Trying to Look Humble

Let me tell you about a university president I'll call Marcia (not her real name, but Marcia, if you're reading this, you absolutely know this story is about you and you're smiling right now).

Marcia inherited a cabinet of seven VPs. All credentialed. All experienced. Combined IQ that could literally cure diseases.

Combined ability to work as a unified team? Roughly equivalent to a committee trying to decide on pizza toppings while honoring everyone's dietary restrictions and also addressing systemic inequity in pizza distribution.

Her first 90 days, she tried everything leadership books recommend:

• Strategic planning sessions
• Vision alignment workshops
• Team-building exercises (they did an escape room—everyone escaped, nobody's relationships improved)

Nothing changed.

Here's what Marcia finally realized: Her team wasn't dysfunctional because they lacked skills. They were dysfunctional because every single person—herself included—was operating from glory-emptiness.

✅ Her CFO needed to be seen as the smartest person in financial discussions.

✅ Her CAO needed recognition as the institutional visionary.

✅ Her VP of Advancement needed credit for revenue growth.

✅ Her VP of Enrollment needed acknowledgment for recruitment strategies.

Nobody was thinking about the institution. Everyone was thinking about their reputation within the institution.

The Turning Point

Marcia did something radical. She stopped trying to fix the team's behavior and started addressing the team's orientation.

She asked each VP privately: "When you think about your work here, what are you most afraid of?"

The answers were devastatingly honest:

• "That people will think I'm not adding real value"
• "That I'll be exposed as not knowing enough"
• "That my successor will do it better and people will realize I wasn't that great"
• "That I'll be forgotten after I leave"

Glory-emptiness. All of them. Including Marcia.

Then she asked a different question at their next retreat:

"What if your professional reputation didn't matter at all? What if you were already fully known, fully valued, fully secure in your worth—not because of your accomplishments but just because of who you are? How would you lead differently?"

The room went silent for 45 seconds. (Which in a room full of executives feels like 45 minutes.)

• Then her VP of Finance said: "I'd probably ask for help more. I'd admit when I don't know something instead of pretending I do."
• Her CAO said: "I'd stop fighting for my ideas and start building on other people's ideas. I'd care more about the best solution than my solution."
• Her VP of Advancement said: "I'd stop tracking whose initiatives get credit and just focus on what actually grows the institution."

Marcia said: "What if we all started operating that way? Not because we've achieved perfect self-actualization, but because we're practicing a different orientation—one where our worth isn't constantly up for negotiation?"

The Results

Six months later: Same people. Same challenges. Different operating system.

They'd built what Marcia called "a culture of self-forgetfulness"—not self-hatred, not self-promotion, but genuine focus on mission over reputation.

The changes:

• Cabinet meetings became 40% shorter (people stopped positioning, started problem-solving)
• Decision velocity increased 3x (people cared more about right answers than being right)
• Innovation accelerated (people stopped protecting territory)
• Voluntary turnover dropped to zero (previously losing 1-2 VPs annually)
• Student outcomes up 12%
• Faculty satisfaction up 18%
• Board confidence dramatically increased (the cabinet finally looked like a team instead of competing empires)

Marcia told me: "Humility isn't something you achieve. It's what happens when you stop needing achievement to prove you matter. That shift changes absolutely everything."

The difference? They stopped trying to fill their glory-emptiness through work performance. They started operating from a completely different foundation.

Now, if you're thinking "this makes philosophical sense, but how do I actually build this into my team's operating system on Tuesday?"—I get it. That's exactly the gap between insight and implementation.

This is what The GROUP is for. Each week, I turn the newsletter topic into a Leader CORE Lesson and Guide: facilitation scripts for vulnerability-based conversations, diagnostic tools for identifying glory-emptiness in your team, exercises for practicing self-forgetfulness together, and frameworks that make this concrete rather than theoretical.

It's free (because charging for the solution to glory-emptiness would be peak irony), and built specifically for leaders who need Monday morning resources, not more Sunday night philosophy.

Grab this week's Humility Architecture implementation guide: https://www.higherperformancegroup.com/the-group

But whether you join The GROUP or not, here's what you can implement immediately...

THE APPLICATION: What To Do Monday Morning (Before Your Team Implodes)

Here's what to do Monday morning (assuming your calendar isn't already booked with meetings about meetings):

STEP 1: THE PRIDE DIAGNOSTIC AUDIT (20 minutes alone, possibly uncomfortable)

You can't work on humility directly. Remember—humility is self-forgetfulness. The moment you start monitoring whether you're humble, you've lost it.

But you CAN identify pride. And pride has four telltale manifestations.

Pull out paper. Be brutally honest. Rate yourself 1-10 on each:

1. DRIVENNESS: Do I need to win? Am I restless with my performance? Do others' successes diminish mine? Do I compare my impact to everyone else's constantly? (1 = content and joyful, 10 = constant need to prove myself)
2. SCORNFULNESS: Do I use sarcasm as a weapon? Mock people whose positions threaten mine? Do my "jokes" make others smaller? (1 = treat everyone with courtesy, 10 = regular contempt for those who oppose or outperform me)
3. WILLFULNESS: Can I admit I'm wrong? Am I teachable? Do I take advice? Can I change my mind when presented with better information? (1 = regularly admit mistakes and change course, 10 = never wrong, always certain)
4. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: How much time do I spend thinking about how I'm coming across? Monitoring whether people respect me? Replaying conversations to analyze my performance? (1 = rarely think about myself, 10 = constantly monitoring my reputation)

Add up your scores. If you're above 28, you have a pride problem that's costing your team more than your budget shortfall.

Now the hard part: Ask 2-3 people who work closely with you to rate you on these same four dimensions. Don't explain what they mean—just give them the four words and the 1-10 scale.

If their average rating is more than 5 points different from yours, that gap IS your leadership problem. Not your strategy. Not your resources. The gap between how you see yourself and how your team experiences you.

STEP 2: THE REPUTATION RELEASE EXERCISE (15 minutes, possibly terrifying)

This is adapted from one of the humblest leaders I ever worked with. He couldn't stand two things: underperforming and unfair criticism.

Here's what he learned: He meditated on the idea that his reputation ultimately matters less than his contribution.

Try this:

Identify the thing that most threatens your sense of professional worth:

• Unfair criticism from your board?
• Being outperformed by a peer?
• Not getting credit for your ideas?
• Being forgotten after you leave?
• Someone discovering you don't know something you're supposed to know?

Write it down. Be specific. Name the scenario that makes your stomach drop.

Now write this sentence:

"If [the scenario you fear] happened, and my reputation suffered, would my contribution still matter? Would the lives I've impacted still count? Would the systems I've built still serve people?"

The answer, of course, is yes.

Your reputation isn't your contribution. Your reputation is other people's current opinion of your contribution. Opinions are temporary. Actual impact is real.

The practice: When you feel that reputation-threat fear rising (someone criticizes you, someone gets credit for your idea, someone outperforms you), pause and ask:

"Am I protecting my reputation or serving my mission?"

If you're protecting reputation, you're operating in pride. If you're serving mission, reputation becomes irrelevant.

STEP 3: THE SELF-FORGETFULNESS CONVERSATION (30 minutes with your team, zero BS)

At your next cabinet meeting, add this agenda item: "The thing we don't talk about."

Say this (I'm giving you the exact script):

"I've been thinking about something. I think our team operates with more self-consciousness than self-forgetfulness. Meaning: I think we all spend more mental energy monitoring how we're perceived than serving our mission. And I include myself—probably especially myself—in that assessment.

So here's my question: What would have to be true for each of us to stop thinking about our reputation and start thinking only about our contribution?

I'll go first. [Share your answer honestly. This ONLY works if you model vulnerability first.]

Then I want to hear from each of you. Not performatively. Just honestly."

Then shut up and let the silence do its work.

Someone will break first. Usually the person you least expect. And they'll say something like:

• "I spend way too much time making sure people know what I'm contributing"
• "I can't celebrate other people's wins because I'm always comparing"
• "I'm exhausted from managing how I'm perceived"

That's your opening. That's where humility begins—with people admitting they're glory-empty and tired of performing fullness.

OBJECTION HANDLING

"This sounds like therapy, not leadership development."

Fair pushback. Except here's the data: Leadership teams in the top quartile for humility-based competencies outperform their peers by 43% on institutional objective achievement.

Teams marked by drivenness, scornfulness, willfulness, and self-consciousness consistently underperform their talent level by 30-40%.

You can call it therapy. I call it the foundation that determines whether strategy actually works.

Also: You're currently spending approximately 12 hours per week managing your reputation (conservative estimate). That's 624 hours annually performing confidence you don't always feel.

How's that working for your actual results?

"My team will think I've lost it if I start talking about 'glory-emptiness'"

Then don't use that language. Use this language:

"I think we're spending more energy on perception management than problem-solving, and it's measurably costing us."

That's concrete. Observable. And if one person has the courage to admit it, everyone else will recognize it immediately.

Yes, this conversation will be uncomfortable. That discomfort is diagnostic.

If you can't have this conversation, your team is operating at Level 1-2 trust, which means you absolutely cannot do Level 5 work (transformation, change leadership, conflict resolution).

The math doesn't care about your comfort.

THE MATURITY SHIFT

❌ Immature leaders think: "I need to project confidence to earn respect." ✅ Mature leaders think: "I need to demonstrate humility to build trust"

❌ Immature leaders measure success by how they're perceived. ✅ Mature leaders measure success by what they've contributed

❌ Immature leaders see vulnerability as career-limiting weakness. ✅ Mature leaders see vulnerability as the foundation of team cohesion

❌Immature leaders need to be the smartest person in the room. ✅ Mature leaders build the smartest room

❌ Immature leaders are terrified of being forgotten. ✅ Mature leaders focus on building something worth remembering

❌ Immature leaders collect accolades like Pokemon cards. ✅ Mature leaders give away credit like it's infinite (because it is)

The difference is the difference between glory-seeking and mission-serving. One makes you exhausting to work with. One makes impossible inevitable.

Here's the paradox nobody warns you about: The way up is down. The way to be truly great is to stop needing to be seen as great. The most powerful thing you can do is give away power for others' flourishing.

Your cabinet doesn't need another strategic planning session about excellence. It needs a fundamental reorientation away from glory-seeking and toward mission-serving.

Everything else is decoration on a foundation that doesn't exist.

Your turn—which of the four pride patterns is your dominant struggle? Comment just one word: drivenness, scornfulness, willfulness, or self-consciousness. No explanation needed.

Or screenshot the maturity shift section and text it to your CFO with: "This is the conversation we've been avoiding."

Or tag a cabinet member who actually models self-forgetfulness and tell them specifically what you admire about their humility. (Naming it when you see it reinforces it.)

CLOSING: You Just Read About Your Actual Problem

You just invested 14 minutes learning why your team's performance problem is actually an orientation problem.

Glory-emptiness masquerading as confidence. Self-consciousness disguised as strategic positioning. Competition wearing a collaboration costume.

Here's how to make sure this insight compounds instead of evaporating by Tuesday morning:

OPTION 1: JOIN THE GROUP (FREE)

Turn every newsletter into ready-to-deploy team resources.

What you get:

• Implementation guides that save you 3+ hours per week
• Facilitation scripts for vulnerability-based conversations
• Diagnostic tools for identifying pride patterns in your team
• Peer community of campus leaders practicing self-forgetfulness together
• Monthly live problem-solving sessions (zero PowerPoints about synergy)
• Your Natural Leadership Profile diagnostic

This week's guide turns this exact newsletter into your next cabinet meeting agenda—including word-for-word scripts for the reputation release exercise and the self-forgetfulness conversation.

JOIN THE GROUP: https://www.higherperformancegroup.com/the-group

OPTION 2: SUBSCRIBE TO LEADER INSIGHTS (ALSO FREE)

Get these provocations delivered weekly to your inbox.

Frameworks nobody else is teaching. Patterns nobody else is naming. Case studies about leaders who stopped performing and started building.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG: https://www.higherperformancegroup.com/blog

Pick one. Pick both. Just don't pick neither.

Because your alternative is continuing to lead from glory-emptiness and hoping different results materialize through better strategic plans and more leadership books.

(Spoiler: They won't.)

YOUR MOVE

Found this valuable?

→ Repost this with the one pride pattern you're committing to address → Tag a leader who models self-forgetfulness and tell them specifically why → Comment below: Which costs your team more—your drivenness, scornfulness, willfulness, or self-consciousness?

The more leaders who shift from glory-seeking to mission-serving, the better our educational institutions become.

Follow DR. JOE HILL and Higher Performance Group for weekly Team Intelligence insights.

NEXT ISSUE: "Your Cabinet Is Performing Collaboration (But Practicing Competition)"

We'll explore why your leadership team looks unified in meetings but operates like rival factions between them—complete with pre-meeting lobbying, post-meeting damage control, and enough political positioning to make the UN Security Council look efficient.

Spoiler: You're not having a communication problem. You're having a glory-emptiness problem wearing a collaboration costume. And it's costing you more than your entire professional development budget combined.



P.S. If you're thinking "I don't have time to turn this into a facilitation plan for Tuesday's cabinet meeting"—I already did it for you. The GROUP implementation guide includes the exact 30-minute conversation script (word-for-word, including how to handle the awkward silence), the diagnostic audit template you can print and use tomorrow, and the reputation release exercise with real examples from campus leaders—everything formatted for copy-paste deployment into your Tuesday cabinet meeting. It's free. It saves you hours. And it might actually change your team's entire operating system. Join here: https://www.higherperformancegroup.com/the-group

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