Intellectual Arrogance in the Corporate World: How to Fix it?

The definition of the term arrogance is to make claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud, characterized by or proceeding from arrogance, or a sense of superiority, self-importance, or entitlement. Arrogance, with a focus on over-inflating one’s self-worth and belittling others, has all the hallmarks of a dark strategy to social life.

In this article, we shall make an attempt to understand intellectual arrogance and intellectual humility through an evolutionary corporate lens. A management column in the Wall Street Journal appeared under the appealing headline, “The Best Bosses Are Humble Bosses.” The article reported that humble leaders “inspire close teamwork, rapid learning and high performance in their teams.” It even reported that one HR consulting firm was planning to introduce an assessment to identify personality traits that include “sincerity, modesty, fairness, truthfulness, and unpretentiousness,” inspired in part by what two psychology professors call the H Factor (a combination of honesty and humility).

What is Intellectual Arrogance?

Intellectual arrogance is a set of characteristics that tends to blind an otherwise intelligent person to recognizing the truth. These include: a lack of logical rigor, resorting instead to preconceived notions or what one thinks he learned in school.

The key question that we should be asking ourselves is that why people can reach to such a state of being arrogant in their corporate lives, especially when they reach the mid to top tiers in their careers? Do their egos get inflated or they simply show off that they have become seniors, so, they need to isolate or look different?

Needless to say, that arrogance is dangerously contagious and overconfidence can delude us into dangerous thoughts and actions — and the same disease can also spread around us like a wildfire too. Even without knowing, some organisational units are considered to be arrogant, anyways i.e. Finance, Procurement and HR etc.

All of which raises an obvious question: If humility is so important, why are so many leaders today, especially our most famous leaders, so arrogant? Or, to flip the question around: In the face of so much evidence that humble leaders do, in fact, outperform arrogant leaders, why is it so hard for leaders at every level to drop their personal egos at the office entrance?

In the real corporate world, some leaders think they can’t be humble and ambitious at the same time. One of the great benefits of becoming CEO of a company, head of a business unit, or leader of a large team, the prevailing logic goes, is that you’re finally in charge of making things happen and delivering results. Edgar Schein, professor emeritus at MIT Sloan School of Management, and an expert on leadership and culture, once asked a group of his students what it means to be promoted to the rank of manager. “They said without hesitation, ‘It means I can now tell others what to do.’” Those are the roots of the know-it-all style of leadership. “Deep down, many of us believe that if you are not winning, you are losing,” Schein warns. The “tacit assumption” among executives “is that life is fundamentally and always a competition” — between companies, but also between individuals within the same company and with other companies. That’s not exactly a mindset that recognizes the virtues of humility.

Now let’s discuss how Intellectual humility can help us make us a better leader?

What Is Intellectual Humility?

Unlike regular humility — which is characterized by honesty, sincerity, and selflessness — Intellectual Humility is about being obsessively curious. You challenge everything — even what you believe is right. It’s not about lacking confidence or changing your mind all the time but about being determined to uncover your blind spots. Diversity of thought is essential to find the best solutions. Arrogance is intellectual blindness.

The Humble Leader

Intellectual humility is one of the key traits that big business giants like Google looks in new hires. Wise leaders know that solving problems is a team effort — everyone brings something different to the table.

Research on inclusive leadership found that when people observe selfless behavior in their leaders, they were more likely to feel included in the teams.

Wise leaders don’t pretend to have all the answers — they lead with questions rather than with solutions. Their job is to get the best ideas from their teams. That requires putting their ego aside rather and letting go of the need to be always right.

Findings from one study revealed that humble CEOs create a positive influence around them: their teams are more collaborative, transparent, and eager to learn. In his book Humble Inquiry, Edgar Schein identifies three different forms of humility.

1. The humility we feel around elders and dignitaries — a basic part of social life.
2. The humility we feel in the presence of those who awe us with their achievements — a regular part of professional life.
3. ‘Here-and-now humility’ — the most rarely observed in business, and the most relevant for those who want to achieve big things. The ‘here-and-now’ challenges the usual power-play — knowledge matters more than formal authority.

How to Get Started

1. Appreciate blind spots

As they rightly say: “Devil is in the detail”. Learn to pay attention to the smallest of details that concern you as a professional. Realise your ignorance can be invisible. Let go of your title. Decisions should be grounded by facts. Don’t let your ego blind you.

2. Admit ‘You Were Wrong’

Contrary to popular belief, people are less harsh with those who admit they erred. Intellectually humble people are seen as more communal and friendlier — people prefer a vulnerable leader over an arrogant one. Most importantly, intellectually humble leaders are willing to admit they are wrong — they acknowledge their mistakes and learn from them.

3. Leading: A Collective Act

No one can change an organization alone. It’s time to let go of portraying leaders as the heroes who save the world. Behind every successful executive, there’s a strong team of people and they must receive their rightful credit. Great leaders develop agents of positive change, not followers.

4. Detach Your Ego with Fearless Culture

Some people build a reputation on pretending to be always right — they believe acknowledging their mistakes would harm their image. Defending one’s reputation at-all-costs is pointless. Put that energy in finding the truth instead and don’t forget to drop your ego at the office entrance. Intellectual humility removes the fear of punishment — it invites people to speak up and express alternative points of view. Encourage your team to challenge the status quo and your perspectives too. A Fearless Culture feels safe for people to acknowledge their mistakes and experiment.

5. Reward Wisdom and Integrate Viewpoints

Do you feel confident enough to realize you don’t have all the answers? Are you willing to lead by example? Constructive and productive conversations require compassion, empathy, and active listening. You must learn to see reality through other people’s eyes. Creativity feeds from abundance, not exclusion — integrate ideas but building on everyone’s thoughts. Apply the “Yes, and…” principle instead of saying “no”. We live in an era where egos make the headlines, but intellectually humble leaders make a difference. We’ll never achieve perfect intellectual humility; developing self-awareness is a lifetime journey. It’s more important to find the best solution than to win an argument. Remember, it’s always better to be wise than to be (perceived as) smart.

Last Word

We need a balance between convictions and humility. There’s a personal cost to an intellectually humble outlook. When we open up ourselves to the vastness of our own ignorance, we experience a sudden suffocating feeling. We all have just one small mind, a tiny, leaky boat upon which to go exploring knowledge in a vast sea of which we carry no clear map.

Why is it that some people never seem to wrestle with those waters? That they stand on the shore, squint their eyes, and transform that sea into a puddle in their minds and then get awarded for their false certainty? “I don’t know if I can tell you that humility will get you farther than arrogance,” says Tenelle Porter, a University of California Davis psychologist who has studied intellectual humility.

“It’s bad to think of problems like this like a Rubik’s cube: a puzzle that has a neat and satisfying solution that you can put on your desk,” says Michael Lynch, a University of Connecticut philosophy professor. Instead, it’s a problem “you can make progress at a moment in time, and make things better. And that we can do — that we can definitely do.”

To be intellectually humble doesn’t mean giving up on the ideas we love and believe in. It just means we need to be thoughtful in choosing our convictions, be open to adjusting them, seek out their flaws, and never stop being curious about why we believe what we believe. Again, that’s not easy.

You might be thinking: “All the social science cited here about how intellectual humility is correlated with open-minded thinking — what if that’s all bunk?” To that, I’d say the research isn’t perfect. Those studies are based on self-reports, where it can be hard to trust that people really do know themselves or that they’re being totally honest. And we know that social science findings are often upended.

Also, watch our recent video on the subject, which you may find beneficial.

Learn how sometimes smaller things in our lives make huge impact and you can take some learnings on a personal and professional level by following me on LinkedIn and on our official website. Also follow us on social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Medium, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Muhammad Sajwani is the Founder, Managing Director and Principal Consultant at Evolve HR which aims at transforming, enriching and evolving Human Capital of Pakistan, At Evolve HR thrives in challenging assumptions that hinder organisational aspirations, by creating innovative solutions that yield maximum impact, scalability & benefit to a wider base of stakeholders. As a Business Coach and Organisational Consultant, Sajwani knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.