“Leadership is about solving problems and unlocking the potential in others.” In an article, titled “Redefining Leadership”, in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, describes some of the traits that she thinks important for today’s successful leaders and how they solve problems and empower others. Ms. Fiorina has always been a big promoter of the value of diversity and she makes that point here. But the two characteristics that she describes as most important for developing this culture of collaboration are humility and empathy, two of the most important traits of servant leadership.

She states, “success requires that you make a proactive, conscious commitment to a culture of humility, and you should take steps to explicitly and implicitly reinforce those ideas for yourself and your team.” Humility is best described as the recognition of the importance of others and the author points out that today’s popular culture of instant gratification and self-promotion is just the opposite of humility.

The author then describes empathy as a natural outflow from humility. She describes empathy as “identifying with what someone else is going through and has gone through—feeling what they are feeling, relating to them, and understanding their motivations.” By understanding where people are and where they come from the leader is able to help them reach their maximum potential.

See the full article for more detail.