Humble Leadership: The Power of Relationships, Openness and Trust

Abstract

Edgar Schein, professor emeritus at MIT, is a wellestablished scholar in fields such as process consultation, organizational change, and organizational culture. He has published numerous books and articles in his more than 50 years in academia. His son, Peter Schein, is a co-founder and COO of the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute. Humble Leadership is part of a progressive unfolding of Edgar Schein’s research on organizations. It follows closely on the heels of Humble Inquiry (2013), in which Schein argues that asking is superior to telling because it enhances trust and builds relationships, and Humble Consulting (2016), in which Schein applies this concept to organizational diagnosis. These books, in turn, were extensions of Helping (2009) which laid the groundwork for the other works.