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Humility has attracted increasing attention in discussions of leadership given the positive effects that humble leaders can have on team and firm performance. In spite of what we know about the favorable outcomes of leader humility, we do not know much about how personality influences humble behaviors. How is leader humility related to personality? How can leaders develop humility? In this article, we look at how the personality factors of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, and Extraversion lead to specific humble behaviors: self-awareness, appreciation of others, low self-focus, teachability, and self-transcendent pursuits. We find that the personality mix of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness to Experience form a substantial base for developing leader humility. At the same time, a humble leader can be an introvert or an extrovert, and can demonstrate different degrees of emotional stability. We offer recommendations and a behavioral inventory of leader humility that can be used by leaders and by organizations to recruit for and promote humility, to engage in behavioral modeling and coaching, and to create interventions to develop leader humility.

Top managers tend to focus on strategy formulation and planning but fail to embrace the problem-solving complexity of strategy implementation. This can lead to implementation failures that are reflected in misaligned organizations that seem to know where they want to go but cannot seem to get there. We posit that one reason for the ineffective transition from strategy formulation to strategy implementation is that planning is associated with a different set of thought processes and emotional experiences than is required for strategy implementation. We integrate research from management (strategy implementation and change management) with that from psychology (self-regulation and nudges) to identify the transition from strategic planning to implementation as a roadblock that prevents effective strategy implementation. We then present six leadership nudges that aid this transition. The first set of nudges are willpower-enhancing nudges that rely on increasing willpower to help transition from planning to implementation: Remove the distraction to plan, develop implementation intentions, and use verbal framing. The second set are desire-reducing nudges that work to decrease the desirability of planning and in so doing facilitate the transition to implementation: Highlight the end game, leverage a crisis, and celebrate small wins.

Humility as a virtue of leadership has attracted increased attention in recent years. We introduce the concept of a humble organizational culture and define it as a culture that promotes humility as a key success factor and a source of competitive advantage, and one that institutionalizes six values and norms: (1) employee development, (2) mistake tolerance, (3) transparency, (4) accurate awareness, (5) recognition, and (6) openness. We position a company culture of humility as key to extraordinary success in the marketplace. Humility in individuals includes a willingness to see the self accurately and a propensity to put oneself and others in perspective. In this article, we offer a set of recommendations to help executives build a company culture of humility that supports the six behavioral norms and values that create the foundation for a firm's competitive advantage. We collected information on organizational cultures of humility for a sample of Fortune 500 firms using data from company mission statements, company websites, and news articles.

Monsanto, a biotechnology giant highly committed to sustainable development efforts, needs to assess the attractiveness of the drinking water treatment industry before deciding its entry to it. Four dimensions of the global water treatment industry are described: types of products and services, applications, end-users and geographical markets. The drinking water treatment segment, which is classified into municipal drinking water treatment and residential drinking water treatment, is examined in depth. Players in these two categories produce the chemicals and equipment necessary to purify tap water supplied to consumers and residential water purification devices. The bottled water industry is considered a substitute of the drinking water treatment segment. The primary objective of the case is to answer the question Is the industry attractive? and to introduce students to industry analysis and industry segmentation.

Monsanto, a biotechnology giant highly committed to sustainable development efforts, needs to assess the attractiveness of the drinking water treatment industry before deciding its entry to it. Four dimensions of the global water treatment industry are described: types of products and services, applications, end users, and geographical markets. The drinking water treatment segment, which is classified into municipal drinking water treatment and residential drinking water treatment, is examined in depth. Players in these two categories produce the chemicals and equipment necessary to purify tap water supplied to consumers and residential water purification devices. The bottled water industry is considered a substitute of the drinking water treatment segment. Teaching purpose: To answer the question "Is the industry attractive?" and to introduce students to industry analysis and industry segmentation.