The title, Marine, is synonymous with leadership. Many outside entities study the Marine Corps to understand its leadership traits, principles, values, and ethos. Yet, “the reader should note that there is a difference between a philosophy and a culture. A philosophy is merely words, but a culture is what truly matters since the culture is the unwritten norms and rules of an organization.”1 While we have a good leadership ethos, we must remember that “good is the enemy of great.”2
Jim Collins states that many organizations fail to become great because becoming good is achievable and comfortable.3 Though the Marine Corps is considered by many as an organization in which outsiders should emulate our leadership philosophy, we are missing one critical leadership trait, in which we are limiting our ability to effectively and efficiently achieve mission success, impose our will, develop and empower our subordinates, and sustain the transformation of our Marines. We, the Marine Corps, must recognize that humility is needed: as one of our leadership traits; to be incorporated into our leadership principles; as a metric in our evaluations; in our ethos; and most importantly to be consistently demonstrated and applied in our culture. As stated by Hayes and Comer, “Humility is one of the most important attributes of leadership because it helps connect the leader to followers through their common bond of humanity. Leaders who have humility build trust, and trust is the essence of leadership.”4 Therefore, the purpose of this article is to clearly showcase the importance of humility, and then provide solutions to our Corps’ decision makers on how to incorporate humility officially in our ethos and culture.
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