How Humility Unlocks Leadership Potential: A Q&A with Ethan Willis, NYT, WSJ, USA Today and Success Magazine Bestselling Author of Growth.com

Ethan Willis is a #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner, and CEO of Growth.com, which was named to Inc. magazine’s list of America’s fastest-growing companies.

His newest book, Humble Power: Less Ego. More Impact. Better Results., was released in September 2026 by Hay House and was named the #1 USA Today Bestselling leadership book. Mel Robbins calls the book “a wake-up call and how people level up.” Tony Robbins says Humble Power delivers “a perspective shift the world urgently needs right now.” Angela Duckworth, author of Grit, says she endorses it because, “By thinking about other people, you become your best self.” Brendon Burchard wrote the foreword saying “this book is a lighthouse to the world.”

Over a career spanning more than 25 years, Ethan has built and led companies across publishing, leadership development, professional training, and digital education. He has managed organizations with as many as 5,000 employees and been involved in training and developing more than 200,000 leaders across over 100 countries.

Ethan is a graduate of Brigham Young University, an alumnus of Harvard Business School, and a member of YPO’s Scottsdale chapter.

Trust grows when people experience consistency between what you promise and what you deliver. Over my more than 25 years in coaching, I’ve learned that our reputation ultimately depends on whether we help people make meaningful progress and take responsibility when we fall short.

In Humble Power, I share the story of a business associate who proudly presented his boss with a contract he had negotiated aggressively. Her response was, “You took too much.” She sent him back to make the agreement more equitable. She understood that the relationship needed to work long after the negotiation ended. That captures how I think about trust: create relationships people want to stay in because both sides benefit.

Authority also comes from being honest enough to be useful. In my conversation with Brendon Burchard, we talked about how humility allows you to be more direct. When people know you care about their progress, they can hear difficult feedback because they trust your intentions. You earn influence by helping people see clearly, follow through and get results.

You don’t need all the answers to be a great leader. Most leadership traits center on self-reliance, such as being decisive, confident, responsible, educated and fully competent. We even measure company success based on the leader; however, both individual and company performance depend on context, multiple points of view, teamwork, and supporting systems. Research shows that one key trait of successful leaders – and it’s a paradox – is humility. We typically think of humility as not knowing anything or lacking confidence in who we are. It’s the opposite. Humility enhances our ability to see things accurately. It means we are grounded in truth; we know who we are, what we know, and what we stand for, but we also realize we might be missing key information. Humble leaders who create humble cultures perform better.

Humility multiplies our strengths by giving us a clear picture of our strengths and weaknesses. It fuels curiosity about what more we can learn, what new we can experience, and what insight we can gain. Humility helps us tap into others’ strengths. It’s a pathway to growth, not a fault that diminishes our strengths.

Humility helps businesses succeed, build stronger business and personal relationships, and bring out the best in ourselves and others.

My leadership style starts with “who” before “what.” Most of the people who work with me are smarter than I am in their areas of expertise. My responsibility is to set clear direction, agree on what success looks like, and give them the authority to own the outcome.

We deliver about 1,500 one-on-one coaching sessions each week, serving clients across 100 countries. Managing that scale requires the right people and the right systems. But the right people help create those systems and hold themselves and their teams accountable. That accountability requires buy-in from the top down, including my willingness to be held to my own commitments.

We establish written metrics and agreed-upon standards up front. Then I give people room to lead. I generally step in when outcomes fall outside those standards. When someone brings me a problem, I’ll often say, “You are the solution. How do you think we should solve this?” I want them to bring their judgment and a recommendation, knowing they have my support.

Over time, I’ve become more intentional about cultivating ownership. As Brendon and I discussed, a company can hit a ceiling when it operates as a “genius with a bunch of helpers.” There is far more capacity available when people contribute their expertise and challenge your thinking.

I believe humility is the soil in which all other talent grows. When humble power is part of your culture, you create the conditions for everyone’s strengths to flourish. Ego does the opposite. When every idea, decision, and answer must run through you, you become a reservoir that dams your people’s potential. I want to be the river that lets that potential flow with power and momentum.

Humility is the foundation upon which other important values grow. Humility isn’t a weakness. It’s a foundation for multiplying your strengths and the team’s. Research on humility shows that those who score high in humility also score high in accuracy, meaning they see themselves and their circumstances as they really are. Humility shows us our weaknesses, but it also reveals our strengths. People with high humility see things more accurately, and humility becomes an antidote to deception. People with high levels of ego are more easily deceived. Humble people see things more accurately. Ego-centric decisions are made in self-preservation. Humble teams and cultures unlock greater productivity and power by bringing all perspectives to a problem and creating a better solution. That’s why they are more productive than teams with ego-centric leadership.

Your greatest responsibility as a leader isn’t to prove how capable you are. It’s to create an environment where the people around you can do their best work. Embrace humility in building your culture. A humble person recognizes that power and perspective exist beyond our own. One of our core coaching practices is to take teams to awe-inspiring places, often in nature, or to connect with high-level achievers. Putting yourself in places of awe, or around people doing incredible things, inspires you and lifts your vision of what you can accomplish. These experiences give you a broader perspective and help you see the gap between what you’re trying to accomplish and where you are. Humility shows us that there’s more to learn – new skills, new connections, and new, larger purposes beyond your current experience. People want to work in humble teams and cultures. Humility unlocks others’ strengths and abilities, and they produce more.