The Oxford English Dictionary defines Humility as “the quality of having a modest or low view of one’s importance.”; A definition I found surprising as it wasn’t what I thought of at the mention of the word.

For me (and many of the people I asked), humility is the ability to admit when you are wrong, not take yourself too seriously or over-inflate your importance over others.

In my experience, having humility helps to build trust with others whereas a lack of humility, drives people away and is a surefire way to destroy trust.

As with many things, being in a position of leadership inflates the effects of many character traits as what you say and do are more visible and have a higher impact on those around you.

My first days as a line manager

I was on my final placement of the engineering graduate program with Mars in their petcare factory in Melton Mowbray, UK and on September 18th, 2017, after a 5-day handover, I became a line manager for the first time at the age of 24.

I had moved from working on engineering projects to managing a team of 7 maintenance technicians on shift in the factory. It was our job to deal with mechanical and electrical breakdowns and to keep the factory running.

At the time, I wasn’t performing as a project engineer and was fortunate that my boss at the time saw something in me that no one else did; he gave me the opportunity to try something else that might be better aligned with my strengths rather than fire me.

My team consisted of 4 mechanical and 3 electrical maintenance technicians, 6 of whom had children who were older than me, meaning that I was by far the youngest and least experienced on that team.

“you need to be humble…”

I was feeling very nervous in the days leading up to my first shift as a line manager and spent my whole week end thinking about how best to approach my new team.

Luckily for me, this wasn’t the first time I had joined a new team in a factory environment so knew that some people would trust until you gave them reasons not to, some would trust you over time and some probably won’t ever trust you.

Even with the above in mind, the steps I planned to take would be good, no matter the starting trust position of anyone on my team.

Here are the things I came up with when reflecting ahead of starting work on the Monday:

Assumption 1: This guy will think he knows it all

What this means: He will make bad decisions, he won’t listen to what we have to say and won’t respect our experience.

My action plan: Be open on day 1 about the following:

• I don’t know anything about their jobs
• I don’t have much experience in leading a team
• I will need their help for us to be a successful team
• I will take the time to help them in any way that I can

What this shows: I recognise my current limitations, I am not afraid of asking for help, I want to help and am open to listen and feedback.

Assumption 2: This guy is young and will want to show us who is boss

What this means: He is going to be a real hard ass who won’t like to be told he is wrong

My action plan: Ask clarifying questions when someone tells you that you are wrong so that you learn where your blind spots are and gain more information so next time you can make better decisions. Don’t be unreasonable with people and apply the learnings next time.

What this shows: I am keen to learn, I have no interest in being a dictator, I will listen and improve my decisions for next time.

Assumption 3: This guy doesn’t know the first thing about my job

What this means: He is going to make me do things that don’t make sense and I am just going to have to do what I am told.

My action plan: Be humble at all times. Recognise that you don’t know the first thing about their work but make a commitment to learn from them and then honour that commitment. If you aren’t sure, tell them you aren’t sure and ask them what they think or what they would do. Several brains are better than one and asking their opinions and actively involving them in decisions builds trust.

What this shows: Shows that you aren’t afraid of not knowing what to do and that you are a team player. You also show that you are OK to be told that you are wrong which in turn contributes towards building trust.

Assumption 4: this guy doesn’t know the first thing about reactive maintenance.

What this means: I can easily lie to him and he know know it.

My action plan: Be endlessly curious and use what you learnt at university and in your work so far. Don’t walk away from any situation without fully understanding what has been said, what the implications are and what the underlying facts are. Sense check everything you hear and keep asking questions until you are satisfied you are happy that the information checks out. Make sure that you understand everything to the point where you can explain what you have been told to a layperson.

What this shows: This will show them that they can’t lie to you just so you leave them alone AND you learn a lot in the process which in turn speeds up your development and understanding of the role.

Assumption 5: this guy is young and won’t know how to be be challenged

What this means: all I have to do is puff up my chest and he will back down

My action plan: be ready to have disagreements and stand firm on things that you believe in, no matter how uncomfortable things feel.

What this shows: You won’t be bullied in to compromising on what you believe is right and makes it less likely that they will try it in the future.

Assumption 6: he is young and young people are lazy and never want to get their hands dirty.

What this means: he is going to sit on his ass in a nice climate controlled office and bark orders at us while we work in a hot, humid, smelly factory.

My action plan: Spend as little time in the office as possible and as much time as I can out on jobs with my team. There may be times that we are short on staff from holidays and sickness so make sure I can do various tasks to help the team out. Learn what tasks they hate doing and what tasks can be done by anyone with some light training and learn how to do them yourself.

What this shows: That you want to help, you aren’t afraid of getting your hands dirty and your desire is to support the team rather than focus on your own comfort.

How to avoid some pitfalls

Work on your self awareness and think about how others might perceive you and judge you even before you say or do anything. As humans, we are all wired to make snap judgements of others based on a myriad of inputs (first and second hand experiences, rumours etc) and being conscious of these will help you avoid certain pitfalls.

Think about what your fears are before you join any new team and be careful of how those fears will manifest themselves in the ways you react to situations that arise. The better you can understand these the easier it will be to overcome them.

Sometimes it can be hard to know what our blind spots are or how our fears drive us to act in certain ways. A mentor or a coach can help you uncover your blindspots and fears. I have worked with people who react aggressively out of fear that they won’t be taken seriously but all this does is have the opposite effect; and others who try to minimise mistakes by having a zero tolerance towards them but all this does is create more anxiety and increases the likelihood that mistakes will be made.

Ask yourself (or get someone else to ask you the following questions:

• What are you most afraid of going in to this role?
• What situations do you find the most stressful?
• In these situations, how do you think you would react?
• What impact could your reactions have on those around you?
• How would you like to be treat in these situations?
• Do you think it would be fair to be treat that way?
• Do you treat others in the same way?
• Do your actions align with the way you’d like to be treat?

Remember to remain humble and you won’t go far wrong.