\u201cWe have had three other foreigners in this position to help us improve quality, but what has been lacking is leadership. We think you can help us. Can you start tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n
I was honored to be offered a high nursing leadership position in an up-and-coming hospital in Nouakchott. The hospital owners aspire to provide the highest quality of care in Mauritania. Yet despite internationally trained doctors and capable nurse managers, the nursing care remains mediocre at best. The hospital, still less than three years old, faces cultural challenges that are deeply ingrained within the nursing staff. Like many organizations, their solution has been to bring in outside leaders. If I accept this challenge, I would be the fourth person in this role in just a few years. The difficulties my predecessors faced, entrenched habits, team dysfunction, and cultural barriers, are still very present. How does one disrupt such a cycle?<\/p>\n
In\u00a0Humble Leadership: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and Trust<\/em>, Edgar and Peter Schein propose a different path. They suggest that what is needed is not another leadership theory, but a foundational approach that undergirds all others. [1]<\/a> \u00a0Humble Leadership is a\u00a0relational process of cultivating transformation and new direction through deep, trusting relationships. [2]<\/a><\/p>\n This concept immediately resonated with my own long-standing struggle. In my twelve years in Mauritania, I have continually wrestled with a fundamental question:\u00a0how can one be a humble leader in a culture where humility is perceived as weakness, vulnerability is seen as a handicap, and trust is virtually nonexistent?<\/p>\n Reading Schein and Schein\u2019s work reminded me of this tension once again. They argue that \u201cleadership is always a relationship, and truly successful leadership thrives in a substrate of high openness and high trust.\u201d[3]<\/a> \u00a0I agree. Management prioritizes results; leadership is relational. Relationships, however, cannot exist without trust. Patrick Lencioni, in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable,<\/em> identifies the absence of trust as the ultimate foundation of team demise. [4]<\/a><\/em> Trust is essential to individual relationships, effective teams, and organizational innovation.<\/p>\n Over the past three weeks, I have been writing a counterproposal for the hospital. Building trust with both the hospital leadership and the nursing staff has been central to this process. Rather than accepting a traditional managerial position, I am proposing to serve as a coach\u2014guiding the staff through leadership development and quality improvement. My greatest question, however, remains whether I can build trust and inspire change without defaulting to the traditional Mauritanian model of transactional, hierarchical leadership.<\/p>\n The book Humble Leadership<\/em> came at a pivotal time in my leadership journey. Chapter 4 resonated with me in its account of the navy captain who embodied humble leadership within a highly hierarchical framework. His example demonstrates that even in settings defined by position and authority, leadership practiced through humility can thrive. The captain\u2019s approach directly addresses the five dysfunctions of teams. Lencioni identifies these as: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.[5]<\/a> In reflections that follow, I pair these two frameworks together as specific practices I intend to adopt in my new role.<\/p>\n Humble Leadership has encouraged me that meaningful change is possible even within a hierarchical system such as the Mauritanian medical context. Returning to my guiding question\u2014how one can be a humble leader in a culture where humility is perceived as weakness, vulnerability as a handicap, and trust as virtually nonexistent<\/em>\u2014I recognize that some of the answers lie in the practices outlined above. Yet the journey begins not with strategy alone, but with trust and obedience, as I submit my own pride and rest in God\u2019s will and plan.<\/p>\n This new leadership role stirs both anticipation and fear. The call to build deep, vulnerable relationships ultimately points beyond human technique to the deeper relationship the hospital staff most needs: a relationship with the Humble Servant Leader, Jesus. As I walk this journey, I want to remember this truth:<\/p>\n \u201cJesus\u2019 humanity restores our humanity. Jesus\u2019 humility restores our humility.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>[11]<\/a><\/p>\n [1]<\/a>Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein, Humble Leadership: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and Trust<\/em>, 2nd ed. (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2023), 4.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Schein and Schein, Humble Leadership, <\/em>156.<\/em><\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Schein and Schein, Humble Leadership, <\/em>ix.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Leadership Fable<\/em> (Jossey-Bass, 2002) 188.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, <\/em>188.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Schein and Schein, Humble Leadership, <\/em>55.<\/em><\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Schein and Schein, Humble Leadership, <\/em>56.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Schein and Schein, Humble Leadership, <\/em>57.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Schein and Schein, Humble Leadership, <\/em>58.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Schein and Schein, Humble Leadership, <\/em>58.<\/p>\n\n
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