21 Key Traits of the Humble Team Player Lencioni

Humility is the first and most indispensable virtue of Patrick Lencioni's ideal team player model. In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni argues that great team members share three virtues: they are humble, hungry, and smart. Of these three, humility is the most important and the hardest to develop because it runs counter to the self-promotion that modern workplaces often reward.

Lencioni defines humility not as a lack of confidence but as a lack of excessive ego. Humble team players do not need to be the centre of attention. They do not hoard credit, compete with colleagues for recognition, or view their contribution as more important than anyone else's. They share credit freely, acknowledge their limitations openly, and genuinely celebrate the success of others.

The absence of humility on a team is destructive in ways that are often subtle but always significant. An arrogant team member creates an environment where colleagues feel undervalued, where collaboration breaks down, and where trust erodes. Even a single person who lacks humility can undermine the trust and teamwork that the rest of the team has worked to build. For a complete overview of all three virtues, see our Ideal Team Player summary.

Below are 21 key traits and strategies for understanding and cultivating humility on your team. If you want help assessing and developing your team's culture around humility, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org.

1. Humility Is Not Weakness

One of the most common misconceptions about humility is that it is the same as passivity, insecurity, or lack of ambition. Lencioni is explicit that this is wrong. Humble team players are not doormats. They are confident, driven, and capable. What distinguishes them is that their confidence does not come at the expense of others and their ambition is directed toward collective success rather than personal glory.

Truly humble people can assert their ideas, push back on colleagues, and take strong positions in debates. They do so without needing to win every argument, without dismissing opposing views, and without making the conversation about their own ego. Humility and strength are not opposites. They are complements that together produce the kind of leader and team member that every organisation needs.

2. Humility Means Sharing Credit

Humble team players instinctively share credit for successes and take responsibility for failures. When a project goes well, they highlight the contributions of others. When a project fails, they examine their own role before pointing fingers. This pattern of behaviour builds trust and encourages collaboration because colleagues know that their contributions will be recognised rather than absorbed.

Credit hoarding is one of the clearest signs of a lack of humility. Leaders who consistently present team accomplishments as personal achievements create an environment where people stop contributing their best ideas. Why bring your best thinking if someone else will take the credit? Humble team players create the opposite dynamic, where people are eager to contribute because they know their efforts will be acknowledged.

3. The Two Types of Non-Humble People

Lencioni identifies two distinct types of people who lack humility. The first is the obvious type: arrogant, boastful, openly competitive, and dismissive of others. These people are relatively easy to identify and manage because their behaviour is visible. Most leaders recognise them and understand the damage they do to team culture.

The second type is more subtle and arguably more damaging: people who lack self-confidence and consistently undervalue their own contributions. Lencioni argues that this is also a form of lacking humility because these individuals are excessively focused on themselves, just in a different direction. Their self-deprecation consumes the team's emotional energy and often masks an unwillingness to accept feedback or take ownership.

4. Humility Enables Vulnerability Based Trust

The connection between humility and vulnerability based trust is direct. In Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions model, trust requires team members to admit weaknesses, acknowledge mistakes, and ask for help. These behaviours are impossible without humility. A person who cannot admit a limitation cannot build the trust that high-performing teams require.

Humble team players are naturally better at building trust because vulnerability comes more easily to them. They do not view admitting a mistake as a threat to their identity. They see it as a normal part of being human. This natural vulnerability makes them easier to trust, easier to collaborate with, and easier to hold accountable. For more on trust, see our vulnerability based trust guide.

5. Look for Humility in Hiring

Lencioni argues that humility should be a non-negotiable criterion in hiring decisions. The challenge is that humility is harder to assess in an interview than technical skills or experience. Lencioni recommends asking candidates to describe their role in team achievements. Humble candidates will naturally share credit with colleagues. Non-humble candidates will consistently position themselves as the hero of every story.

Other interview techniques include asking about failures and what the candidate learned, asking about colleagues they admire and why, and observing how they treat everyone they interact with during the hiring process, not just the decision-maker. Humility is revealed in patterns of behaviour, not in single answers, so the assessment must look at the whole picture.

6. Humility Without Hunger Creates Pawns

Lencioni's model identifies specific problems when one or two virtues are present without the third. A person who is humble and smart but not hungry is what Lencioni calls a Lovable Slacker. They are pleasant to work with and interpersonally skilled but lack the drive and work ethic to contribute their fair share. They coast on likeability while others carry the workload.

A person who is humble but lacks both hunger and smarts is what Lencioni calls a Pawn. They are well-intentioned but directionless and interpersonally clumsy. These individuals have good hearts but need significant development in both drive and people skills. Understanding these combinations helps leaders diagnose what each team member needs to grow toward being an ideal team player.

7. Model Humility from the Top

As with every team behaviour in Lencioni's framework, humility must be modelled by the leader. When the CEO or team leader demonstrates humility by sharing credit, admitting mistakes, acknowledging what they do not know, and deferring to colleagues with greater expertise, it creates permission for the entire team to do the same.

The converse is equally true. When the leader takes credit for team successes, never admits error, and positions themselves as the smartest person in the room, the team will either mirror that behaviour or withdraw into self-protection. The leader's humility sets the ceiling for the team's humility. No team will be more humble than its leader.

8. Humility Enables Productive Conflict

Humble team players can engage in productive conflict without making it personal. Because they are not invested in being right for the sake of their ego, they can argue passionately for their ideas while remaining genuinely open to being persuaded by a better argument. This is the essence of productive conflict: honest, passionate debate without personal stakes.

Non-humble team players turn every disagreement into a battle of egos. They argue to win rather than to find the best answer. They take challenges to their ideas as personal attacks. They hold grudges when their position does not prevail. This dynamic makes productive conflict impossible and drives the team toward artificial harmony. For more on productive conflict, see our guide.

9. Celebrate Others Genuinely

One of the most visible signs of humility is the ability to genuinely celebrate the success of others. Humble team players are not threatened by their colleagues' achievements. They see a colleague's success as a win for the team, not as a diminishment of their own contribution. This capacity for genuine celebration builds relationships and reinforces the collaborative culture that high-performing teams require.

The opposite behaviour, downplaying, diminishing, or ignoring a colleague's achievement, is a clear signal of ego-driven insecurity. Leaders should watch for this behaviour and address it directly. A team culture where success is shared and celebrated is a team culture where humility thrives.

10. Humility Makes Accountability Easier

Peer accountability requires the ability to receive feedback without defensiveness. Humble team players excel at this because they do not view feedback as a personal attack. They see it as useful information that helps them improve. This receptivity makes accountability conversations easier for everyone involved and builds the culture of honest feedback that high-performing teams need.

Conversely, arrogant team members make accountability nearly impossible. They react to feedback with defensiveness, counter-attack, or dismissal. Over time, colleagues stop providing honest feedback because the emotional cost is too high. The team loses its accountability culture, and performance declines as a result.

11. Humility Is a Learnable Behaviour

Lencioni acknowledges that humility is partly dispositional, with some people being naturally more humble than others. However, he also argues that humility can be developed with deliberate practice and a genuine desire to grow. People who recognise their lack of humility and commit to changing can make meaningful progress over time through consistent effort and honest self-reflection.

The development of humility requires feedback, because humble behaviour is defined partly by how others experience you. Regularly asking colleagues, "How do you experience working with me?" and genuinely listening to the answer is one of the most effective practices for building humility. It is also, ironically, an act of humility in itself.

12. The Cost of Tolerating Arrogance

Tolerating arrogance on a team, even when the arrogant person is a high performer, sends a devastating message to the rest of the team. It says that individual talent matters more than team values and that the standards apply to some people but not to others. Over time, this erodes the trust, collaboration, and commitment that the team depends on.

Lencioni is direct on this point: a brilliant team member who lacks humility is ultimately more damaging than a moderately talented team member who embodies all three virtues. The toxic behaviour of an arrogant high performer will eventually drive away the humble, hungry, smart people who are the real foundation of team success.

13. Humility in How You Handle Success

How a team member handles success is one of the clearest tests of their humility. When a project succeeds, do they immediately credit the team? Do they acknowledge the contributions of people who were not in the room? Do they recognise the role that timing, luck, and others' efforts played? Or do they position the success as primarily their own achievement?

Humble responses to success build relational capital. Every time a team member shares credit, they strengthen their relationships and increase their colleagues' willingness to collaborate in the future. Ego-driven responses to success spend relational capital and make future collaboration harder.

14. Humility in How You Handle Failure

Equally important is how a team member handles failure. Humble team players take ownership of their role in failures without excessive self-flagellation. They examine what went wrong, learn from it, and move forward. They do not blame others, make excuses, or deny responsibility. This honest accountability for failure builds trust and models the behaviour the team needs.

Non-humble responses to failure, including blame-shifting, excuse-making, and denial, erode trust rapidly. When a colleague consistently avoids taking responsibility for failures, the team learns that this person cannot be trusted with honest feedback or accountability. The relationship becomes transactional rather than genuinely collaborative.

15. Seek to Understand Before Being Understood

Humble team players listen more than they talk. They ask questions before offering opinions. They seek to understand their colleagues' perspectives before advocating for their own. This pattern of listening first and speaking second is one of the most practical expressions of humility and one of the most powerful habits for building trust and improving team decision-making.

When team members consistently advocate before listening, meetings become competitive rather than collaborative. The loudest voice wins, regardless of whether it represents the best thinking. When team members listen first, the team's collective intelligence is fully engaged, and decisions are better because every perspective has been heard and considered.

16. Humility Means Accepting Help

Asking for help is an act of humility, but so is accepting help when it is offered. Some team members are willing to ask for help in principle but resist it in practice, either because they believe they should be able to handle everything themselves or because accepting help feels like an admission of inadequacy. Both reactions reflect a subtle form of pride.

Humble team players accept help graciously and recognise that collaboration is not a sign of weakness but of strength. They understand that the team's collective capability exceeds any individual's capacity and that accepting help allows the team to deploy its resources effectively.

17. Do Not Confuse Humility with a Lack of Ambition

Humble team players can be enormously ambitious. The difference is the direction of their ambition. Non-humble people are ambitious for themselves: their career, their recognition, their status. Humble team players are ambitious for the team and the organisation. They want to achieve great things, but they want to achieve them collectively rather than individually.

This redirected ambition is immensely powerful because it is harnessed to the team's goals rather than competing with them. Humble, ambitious team players channel their drive and energy into outcomes that benefit everyone, making them invaluable contributors to any organisation's success.

18. Humility Shows in Small Moments

Humility is not demonstrated primarily in grand gestures. It shows in small, everyday moments: how you greet the receptionist, how you respond when interrupted, how you react when a colleague gets the assignment you wanted, how you behave when no one is watching. These micro-behaviours, accumulated over time, define whether you are experienced as humble or arrogant by your team.

Leaders who want to assess humility on their team should pay attention to these small moments. They reveal character far more reliably than interview answers or performance reviews. A person who treats everyone with equal respect, regardless of their position or status, is demonstrating the humility that builds great teams.

19. Address Humility Gaps Early

When a team member shows signs of lacking humility, the leader must address it early. Ego-driven behaviour that goes unaddressed becomes entrenched and increasingly difficult to change. Early, caring conversations about how a person's behaviour is affecting the team give them the opportunity to adjust before the damage becomes irreparable.

The conversation should focus on specific behaviours, not on character. "In the meeting today, you dismissed Sarah's suggestion without engaging with it. I need you to genuinely consider your colleagues' ideas before responding." This kind of specific, behavioural feedback is actionable and less likely to trigger defensiveness than a broader conversation about personality.

20. Humility Creates a Culture of Learning

Teams with humble members are learning teams. When people are not afraid to admit what they do not know, ask questions, and seek feedback, the entire team improves faster. Humble team players create an environment where curiosity is valued, mistakes are learning opportunities, and continuous improvement is the norm rather than the exception.

Non-humble teams stagnate. When people are too proud to admit gaps in their knowledge, they stop learning. When they are too defensive to receive feedback, they stop improving. When they are too competitive to share information, the team's collective intelligence remains fragmented. Humility is not just a relational virtue. It is a performance enabler.

21. Humility Is the Foundation of the Ideal Team Player

Of Lencioni's three virtues, humility is the most foundational. A person who is hungry and smart but not humble is what Lencioni calls a Skillful Politician: effective individually but corrosive to team culture. A person who is humble, even if their hunger or smarts need development, can grow into an ideal team player because they are open to feedback and genuinely motivated by the team's success.

This is why Lencioni places humility at the top of his list. Without humility, hunger becomes self-serving ambition. Without humility, smarts becomes manipulation. Humility is the virtue that ensures the other two are directed toward the good of the team rather than the advancement of the individual. It is the foundation upon which everything else is built.

What to Do Next

Start by honestly assessing your own humility. Ask your team members for candid feedback about how you show up in meetings, how you handle success and failure, and how you treat people at every level of the organisation. Their answers will reveal whether your self-perception matches their experience. That gap, if it exists, is where your growth begins.

For your team, consider running a workshop on Lencioni's Ideal Team Player model to help every member assess their own balance of humility, hunger, and smarts. Jonno White facilitates Ideal Team Player workshops for leadership teams. To discuss how this could work for your team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Lencioni mean by humility in a team player?

Lencioni defines humility as a lack of excessive ego. Humble team players share credit, acknowledge limitations, celebrate others' success, and do not need to be the centre of attention. Humility is not weakness or passivity. It is confidence without arrogance.

Why is humility the most important of the three virtues?

Without humility, hunger becomes self-serving ambition and smarts becomes manipulation. Humility ensures the other two virtues are directed toward the team's benefit. A person who is humble can develop hunger and smarts, but a person who lacks humility will use those virtues to serve themselves.

How do you assess humility in a job interview?

Ask candidates to describe team achievements and listen for whether they share credit. Ask about failures and what they learned. Observe how they treat everyone during the hiring process. Humble candidates naturally distribute credit and take ownership of setbacks.

Can humility be developed?

Yes, though it requires genuine self-awareness and commitment to growth. Regular feedback from colleagues, deliberate practice of listening and sharing credit, and honest self-reflection can all help develop humility over time. The key is that the person must genuinely want to change.

What is a Skillful Politician in Lencioni's model?

A Skillful Politician is someone who is hungry and smart but not humble. They are ambitious and interpersonally skilled but use these abilities to serve their own interests rather than the team's. They are politically adept but ultimately corrosive to team culture.

How does humility connect to vulnerability based trust?

Vulnerability based trust requires team members to admit weaknesses, acknowledge mistakes, and ask for help. These behaviours are impossible without humility. Humble team players build trust naturally because vulnerability comes easily when you are not consumed by protecting your ego.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Brisbane-based leadership consultant, bestselling author, and Certified Working Genius Facilitator specialising in organisational health. His book, Step Up or Step Out, has sold over 10,000 copies globally and equips leaders with practical strategies for difficult conversations and conflict resolution.

Jonno hosts The Leadership Conversations Podcast, reaching listeners in over 150 countries across 230+ episodes. He works with CEOs, school principals, and executive teams across Australia, the USA, UK, Singapore, Canada, and India, delivering keynotes, workshops, executive team offsites, and facilitated strategic planning sessions using Patrick Lencioni's frameworks.

As a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, Jonno helps teams build both relational health and operational effectiveness. His services include Working Genius facilitation, DISC workshops, StrengthsFinder sessions, executive coaching, and leadership team development. To discuss how Jonno can help your team develop humility, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

35 Vital Lessons from the Ideal Team Player Summary

Humility is just one of the three essential virtues Lencioni identifies for ideal team players. Where this article focuses specifically on humility, our comprehensive Ideal Team Player summary covers 35 vital lessons across all three virtues, including how they interact and what happens when one or two are missing.

If the humility insights in this article helped you, the full summary will give you the complete picture of what makes an ideal team player.

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