I’m on a train traveling from Osaka to Yokohama, nearing the end of a two-week trip to Japan.
There is always something enlightening that comes from traveling, especially when you venture outside the U.S. The genuine kindness and courtesy of the Japanese people resonates like no other country I’ve visited. From city to city it has been like this, and, as a result, it’s made me reflect on how much today’s narrative focuses on the individual.
Idolatry takes center stage these days. Social media algorithms feed us stories that might convince us that individual founders, CEOs, influencers, athletes, and artists are all that matter. As the storyline goes, the individual does it all and deserves all the credit.
But we should know better. We must know there are many individuals in the U.S., including in my homeland of Silicon Valley where the ethos “look at me” rings louder than anywhere else (except perhaps in D.C.), who embrace service, humility, and serendipity.
I encourage leaders to embrace these three traits and express them in their work. I encourage those seeking career roles to evaluate opportunities based on how much these three traits are clearly visible in how leaders lead in target organizations. I encourage you to define these three traits in your own way and to then express them in your work.
In Service of Others
The best leaders work in service of those they lead. They truly are inspired by the success of those they lead over their own success. Beware the CEO who shows up at the board meeting alone, and laud the CEO who brings executive team members to the board meeting so they may present on their functional areas. Beware the functional leader or manager who takes sole credit, and laud those who call out publicly the contributions of team members who make group successes possible.
You can practice being in service of others at any level. Ask teammates in a meeting for their input or ideas. Send an email that highlights the contribution of someone else. Speak in the person of “we” and “us”, and reserve “I” and “me” first-person for those instances where you take accountability when things don’t go as planned.
Moving with Humility
Working in service of others goes hand in hand with possessing a true sense of humility. Caring more about doing the right thing when nobody is looking versus making sure to get credit for what is accomplished is the mark of a humble leader. Beware the CEO who prioritizes their own brand image over the priorities and needs of the company.
The irony about humility is how it’s those very individuals who are hard to recall by name that embody humility the most. They aren’t out beating their chest telling the world how brilliant they are. They haven’t started a podcast and then implored their audience to vote for that same podcast in the latest podcast award balloting. Instead, these are the leaders focused on the never ending list of things that matter more to the organization’s success than trying to make sure people know how important they are.
Recognizing the Role of Serendipity
While service springs from humility, it is humility that keeps us honest about the role serendipity plays in the outcomes we enjoy. Too often, leaders are convinced - and then aim to convince us - that it is their unique set of intellectual gifts that deliver success and personal fortune. True leaders recognize the role that serendipity — the combination of luck, good fortune, and timing — plays in outcomes, and they know when they and their teams are positioned to act on it.
I think of my time at a specific digital media company. It was during the heyday of search engine optimization (SEO) and we happened to be operating in a category that had “news frequency” dynamics so we could avoid Google’s recurring efforts to squash SEO jockeys. We succeeded.
Today we read how Google has fundamentally changed search to now be the front end for Gemini, their own AI beast. As a result, digital publishers are seeing their SEO traffic referrals from Google decline dramatically. This will only continue, and digital publishers will feel more pain. Are today’s content platforms less brilliant than we were many years ago? No, they have merely ended up on the other end of the serendipity spectrum.
What to Look For
I don’t begrudge the self-promoters, or the individuals in leadership positions or positions of influence who seemingly ignore the traits of working in service of others, moving with humility, and recognizing serendipity. I do know there are many individuals who exhibit these traits as leaders, and that they exist in far larger numbers than we see because their contributions are drowned out by the algorithms that amplify the former. And, most important, I believe those who embrace service, humility, and serendipity are the leaders who, alongside their teammates, build enduring products, businesses, and cultures.
NextPlay>Forward AI Disclaimer: I very actively use artificial intelligence and large language models to generate the content you read here, but I do review it and edit it to make sure it can be generally useful to people who read it. Keep in mind that AI can make mistakes - check important information. Let me know if I make any errors and I will correct them.