Abstract
Humility is a salient virtue for Christian formation with demonstrated relevance for religious leader effectiveness and well-being. However, humility is complex for religious leaders, as role-related factors promote and challenge healthy humility. Practicing healthy humility might be particularly complicated for religious leaders who hold non-dominant identities, such as women or Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Using reflexive thematic analysis, this study reports on humility experiences among eight women, most of whom were BIPOC, enrolled in an Evangelical seminary. Four overarching themes were constructed: (1) Humility is essential for Christian life but can be difficult to define, (2) Humble leadership involves negotiating intersecting identities across time and context, (3) Ministry pressure and personal tendencies challenge authentic humility, and (4) Authentic humility can and should be cultivated. Discussion includes implications for these findings and recommendations for seminarian formation.
Humility is a central virtue for many religious traditions (Davis et al., 2017; Herdt, 2014; Wolfteich et al., 2016). By virtue, we mean “qualities of human character and excellence which enhance the capacity to live well” (Sandage & Hill, 2001, p. 243). Although other traditions promote humility as regarding others, tempering pride, owning personal limitations, or remembering one’s place in the universe, in Christianity, humility is also seen as “one of the defining attributes of Jesus” (Davis et al., 2017, p. 244) whom Christians are taught to emulate. A growing number of psychological studies have emphasized humility’s salience for religious leaders (e.g. Jankowski et al., 2022; Wolfteich et al., 2021), and previous research has documented its relationship with religious leader capacities and effectiveness (e.g. Captari et al., 2021; Paine et al., 2016) and personal well-being (Jankowski et al., 2019). However, religious leaders can struggle as they negotiate unique role-related and contextual factors that challenge and promote humility development and behavior (Ruffing et al., 2020). Personal identities might also be relevant for humility engagement. Scholars from various disciplines have cautioned against humility forms, such as those emphasizing limitations and lowering oneself, that might disproportionately affect persons with marginalized identities by perpetuating oppressive cycles and obstructing upward social mobility (e.g. Bloomfield, 2021; Floyd-Thomas, 2020; Hinson-Hasty, 2012; Paine et al., 2018). As Wolfteich et al. (2016) noted, these critiques “complexify the place of humility in religious leadership, underscoring the need for keen attention to race, gender, and sexuality in current empirical humility research and practical theological reflection” (p. 233). Religious leaders with non-dominant and marginalized identities, including women and Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), could find themselves in complicated positions navigating the meaning of humble behavior amid these social dynamics. However, most scholarship considering identities as relevant for religious leader humility has been theoretical, and empirical studies investigating these dynamics are needed. The current study intends to begin addressing this literature gap. Specifically, through qualitative inquiry and analysis, this study explored humility experiences in women, most of whom were also BIPOC, in training at an Evangelical seminary in the Northeastern United States.
Defining humility
Psychological research on humility has grown over recent years. Although definitions vary, most scholars have conceptualized humility as a positive, multidimensional trait involving (a) accurate awareness about oneself, including limitations and strengths; (b) an appreciative, open orientation toward others and their differences; and (c) capacity to regulate intense emotions, especially shame and pride (Davis et al., 2017; Ruffing et al., 2020). Weidman and colleagues (2018) found empirical evidence for two key dimensions in humility’s psychological structure, “one involving generally prosocial, affiliative feelings of appreciation for others, and another involving more antisocial, withdrawal-oriented feelings of self-abasement” (p. 154). They argued that psychological literature underrepresents the latter despite lay, theological, and philosophical traditions that may conflate humility with self-deprecation and shame. Their findings underscore the importance of considering humility dialectically with appreciation for strengths and capacities, and not merely the antithesis of grandiosity or arrogance.
Many major world religions (Davis et al., 2017; Wolfteich et al., 2016) promote humility as integral to spiritual formation and mature faith (Herdt, 2014). Other traditions emphasize orienting toward others, resisting pride, or remaining mindful of one’s own limitations or place in the cosmic order, in Christianity, humility is also a quality of Jesus (Davis et al., 2017) that Christians are to imitate. Theologically, Jesus’ humility has been mostly associated with kenosis (Pardue, 2012), referring to passages like Philippians 2:4-8, and Jesus’ incarnation and death, as a model for relating to God and others: Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (New Revised Standard Version, 1989)
Humility has also been associated with Jesus’ tendency to subvert “traditional power structures by describing the Kingdom of God as a culture that honors humility” (Davis et al., 2017, p. 244). Christian understandings of humility vary, however. In dialectically inclined interpretations, humility involves recognizing a person’s strengths and inherent “value as an imager-bearer and child of God” (Austin, 2018, p. 25). Others have carried an ascetic, self-effacing valance (Hinson-Hasty, 2012; Weidman et al., 2018) and promoted “self-deprecation, self-denial, and personal sacrifice as sacred practice” (Stauffer, 2021, p. 158). These variations held in Wolfteich and colleagues’ (2021) qualitative inquiry of religious leaders’ conceptualizations of humility; some leaders described humility with reference to accurate self-knowledge of limitations and strengths whereas others saw humility more one-dimensionally as the opposite of pride.
In addition to relating humbly with others, theological humility understandings tend to emphasize relating humbly with the sacred (e.g. Wolfteich et al., 2021). Sometimes humility with the sacred has appealed to humanity’s finite knowledge. For example, Templeton (1981) defined humility as “admission that God infinitely exceeds anything anyone has ever said of Him [sic]; and that He [sic] is infinitely beyond human comprehension and understanding” (p. 34). Other understandings have emphasized dependence on the sacred for salvation from the human condition. Aleshire (2021), former president of the Association for Theological Schools, described humility as a “central Christian virtue. It begins with a sense of honesty about oneself and what one can and cannot do, and the resulting understanding of dependence on God, one’s culpability in sin, and need for God’s grace” (p. 80).
Humility in religious leaders
A small but growing number of studies on humility and spirituality have documented humility’s salience for religious leader well-being, with particular attention to its ability to buffer against negative outcomes. In a sample of religious leaders from Abrahamic traditions, Jankowski and colleagues (2019) found a positive relationship between general humility and overall well-being. In a clergy candidate sample, humility lessened the effect of narcissism on well-being through differentiation of self (Jankowski et al., 2022). In a sample of predominantly BIPOC seminary students, humility was positively related to eudaimonic well-being over and above other spiritual formation factors and spiritual impression management (Ruffing et al., 2021). Humility was also positively related to spiritual well-being among students at a progressive Mainline Protestant seminary, with qualitative results from the same study indicating most students viewed humility as relevant to their spiritual formation (Captari et al., 2021).
Humility has also been evidenced as relevant for religious leader effectiveness. Studies have found that perceiving a religious leader to be intellectually humble—that is, having the capacity to recognize one’s own intellectual strengths and limitations and effectively negotiate divergent ideas in relationship—uniquely accounted for forgiveness of that leader’s transgression (Hook et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2015). Others have examined humility’s relationship with other important capacities relevant for leadership, such as intercultural competence and differentiation of self, among seminarians and religious leaders (Captari et al., 2021; Paine et al., 2016). In a pilot study on student leaders at a Christian university, humility prior to beginning a leadership role predicted positive leadership capacities, such as empathic concern and perspective taking, six weeks later (Krumrei-Mancuso, 2022).
Spiritual and religious persons represent a population with a distinct humility dilemma, however. According to Davis and colleagues (2017), most religions tend to promote humility before the Sacred as a virtue, [but] they also tend to promote commitment to religious authority and community that may actually make humility toward different ideas—and the other people who hold them—particularly difficult. (p. 244)
This dilemma may feel especially acute for those in religious leadership, as they are susceptible to congregants’ idealization and expectations (Hook et al., 2015). Qualitative studies have begun drawing out some of the ministerial contextual factors that challenge and facilitate humility development. For example, Ruffing et al. (2020) surveyed religious leaders from Abrahamic traditions and found that humility challenges included others’ praise, a felt and projected sense of power, self-satisfaction about helping others, and role-related requirements that felt incongruous with humility (e.g. promoting one’s own accomplishments to make the congregation more attractive). Notably, these dilemmas were especially complicated for some women and BIPOC participants, who felt invisible because of gender and race, challenging them to “[figure] out how to be visible leaders and appropriately humble” (Ruffing et al., 2020, p. 120). Humility facilitators were (a) receptive, such as encountering others’ lives and suffering, engaging diversity, awareness of insufficiency and dependence on others’ feedback, and (paradoxically) lack of appreciation or clear indicators of success; and (b) active, including a relational dependence on and aspiration to glorify God, an interdependent, team-based approach to leadership, organizational cultures of humility and role models, and engaging in spiritual practices. The study by Captari and colleagues (2021) mentioned with Mainline seminarians similarly found humility was challenging in the context of ministry, facilitative of growth, and for some participants challenging and facilitative. The facilitators in these studies were consistent with practices that religious leaders in another study described as cultivating humility, including (a) prayer, study, and worship, (b) explicit self-reflection about humility or one’s limitations, (c) engaging in relationship with others, and (d) service without public recognition (Wolfteich et al., 2021).
Humility critiques
Despite humility’s relevance for religious leadership, scholars primarily in philosophy and virtue ethics have questioned humility’s universality and cautioned that not all understandings or applications might be beneficial, especially for persons with marginalized identities. Although some forms of humility could be considered liberatory (Battaly, 2021), others could be used as an “instrument of subjugation, a means of social control to maintain an unjust status quo,” (Bloomfield, 2021, p. 36). For instance, humility understandings that excessively emphasize limitations and lowering oneself, rather than viewing oneself accurately with simultaneous appreciation for strengths, might exacerbate power differences for those who already regularly experience social inequities.
Drawing from the notion of spiritual bypass, a psychological defense that “exaggerate[s] spiritual beliefs, emotions, or experiences over and against psychological needs creating a means of avoiding or bypassing difficult emotions” (Picciotto et al., 2018, p. 334), Captari and colleagues (2023) proposed “virtue bypass” to refer to “virtue language or behaviors . . . that undermine or are counter to flourishing, such as to (a) oppress and subjugate others or (b) repress and deny one’s own emotions and needs” (p. 422). Attending to ways promoting certain virtue forms could be harmful represents an important shift in the psychological study of virtue, as most scholarship to date has conceptualized humility as positive with little attention to its potential vulnerabilities. For instance, humble behavior (e.g. deferring to others, owning limitations) might function to preserve relationships or navigate complex power dynamics in specific contexts, but this behavior might be qualitatively different from humility as a prosocial trait. Although significantly more work is needed in this area, a couple of empirical studies have documented potential complexities. In a sample of LatinX immigrants in the United States, humility moderated the relationship between racialized trauma and psychological symptoms, suggesting a potentially exacerbating effect in a population already at risk for negative outcomes (Nobis, 2020). Furthermore, what constitutes humble behavior might depend on perceivers and the perceived. In their examination of gendered nuances of presentation style and humility, Priebe and Van Tongeren (2023) found experimental evidence that women who outwardly celebrated their accomplishments were considered less humble than male counterparts. These findings reveal a need for more careful consideration of gender and other identities (e.g. racial, ethnic, class), social power, and context in promoting humility as virtuous.
Theological engagement is also relevant. Theologies equating humility with asceticism or that problematize appreciation for one’s own strengths may support or even sanctify the kinds of subjugation philosophers warn against, rendering some members or communities more vulnerable to negative effects. For example, theologian Valerie Saiving Goldstein (1960) offered an influential critique of Christian traditions equating the sinful human condition with pride, suggesting that status-driven challenges primarily belonged to men and others in power. Women, she argued, have a distinct experience of the world, in part because of their physiology but largely because of culturally imposed meanings about their physiology, that then shape their development; as such, they are more inclined toward self-negation and debasement, such that undifferentiated humility promotion not only overlooks but perpetuates their core challenges. Ruffing and colleagues (2018) summarized Saiving’s thesis: “Men and women have different starting places” in relation to pride; men have too much and women not enough (p. 529), which is consistent with meta-analytic evidence showing men tend to score higher than women in narcissism, particularly grandiose expressions (Grijalva et al., 2015; Weidmann et al., 2023). Although gender is one organizing identity—and experiences of gender are not universal across cultures, theological traditions, and so on—Ruffing and colleagues (2018) proposed that the relevance of such theologies for humility development extends to persons with other marginalized identities as well, not just women. Depending on one’s identities and social contexts, healthy humility development may not mean minimizing strengths even more but instead involve acknowledging one’s own capacities and contributions.
The current study
Prior research suggests that religious leaders face distinct humility dilemmas as they navigate ministerial contexts and roles that facilitate and challenge humility development (Captari et al., 2021; Davis et al., 2017; Ruffing et al., 2020). Furthermore, critiques of humility as universally virtuous (Bloomfield, 2021; Floyd-Thomas, 2020), and scholarship on its potentially negative effects on positive mental health among minoritized persons (Nobis, 2020), suggest that social privilege and individuals’ identities are essential factors in investigating how religious leaders understand and experience humility. This study responded to calls for more attention to these considerations (Wolfteich et al., 2016) and employed qualitative methods to explore these dynamics further in a sample of emerging religious leaders. Specifically, our inquiry asked: What are seminarian women’s humility experiences?
Methods
Sample
The study sample (N = 8) was comprised of female-identifying seminary students, all of whom identified as heterosexual. They were between 23-61 years old (M = 40) and identified as Black or African American (n = 3), Asian (n = 2), White (n = 2), and bi-racial (n = 1). They were married (n = 5), single (n = 2), and divorced (n = 1), and their highest completed education levels were a master’s degree (n = 4), some college (n = 1), a 4-year degree (n = 1), some graduate-level courses (n = 1), and a doctoral degree (n = 1). Seven identified as Evangelical Protestant, and one identified as Mainline Protestant. Their seminary programs included Master of Divinity (n = 4), Master of Arts in Counseling (n = 3), and Master of Arts in Urban Ministry Leadership (n = 1); they were first (n = 4), second (n = 1), and third year (n = 3) students.
Interview procedures
We recruited participants from a sample of graduate students from an urban Evangelical seminary in the northeast United States. These students attended a spiritual formation workshop on humility and participated in a study on the effects of this training (for an overview of the workshop, see Jankowski, Sandage et al., 2022). Quantitative data were collected prior to, immediately following, and one month after the workshop. In the workshop, attendees learned about three humility challenges toward which someone could be inclined: (a) expansive grandiosity (e.g. over functioning to gain validation, perfectionism, superiority), (b) reactivity to difference and conflict (e.g. ethnocentrism, shame, resentment), and (c) hiding the self in relationship (e.g. isolation, hyper-autonomy, addiction). Immediately following the workshop, participants self-ranked these challenges in order of personal salience, based on how they perceived themselves. At the end of the final survey, participants indicated their willingness to participate in a follow-up interview. Female-identifying participants who completed the quantitative measures were eligible to participate in the current study. We used stratified randomization to obtain a sample of interviewees with varying humility experiences. The decision to use this sampling was not guided by a goal to rely heavily on the statistical effects of probability theory for a qualitative study; rather, we wanted to ensure diversity in self-perception within our small sample. First, we sorted eligible participants by their primary self-identified challenges and then randomly selected potential interviewees from each group. We recruited on a rolling basis until we achieved close to equal representation across the groups. In the final sample, three participants identified most strongly with “hiding the self,” three with “expansive grandiosity,” and two with “reactivity to difference and conflict.”
The first and second authors conducted the interviews in-person at the seminary campus (n = 5) or a private, off-site location (n = 3), whichever the interviewee preferred. The interviews lasted between 60 and 90 min and focused on participants’ experiences of and relationships with humility in their ministry settings, including attention to the challenges they identified with most strongly. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis. Interviewees received a US$50 gift card.
Analysis
Procedures for reflexive thematic analysis (TA; Braun et al., 2019) informed our coding process. Unlike methods that situate coders as observers objectively reporting themes from a data set, reflexive TA aims “to provide a coherent and compelling interpretation of the data, grounded in the data” (Braun et al., 2019, p. 848) and positions researchers as active, resourceful agents in co-constructing knowledge. This approach emphasizes themes as patterns of meaning rather than semantic descriptions of domains and aligns with our constructivist epistemologies.
Our primary analytic goal was to derive a set of meaning-rich themes that captured the essence and breadth of the participants’ humility experiences, and the process was necessarily iterative. To begin, we (first, second, and third authors) familiarized ourselves with the whole of the data by inductively and independently reading each interview and noting observations and potential patterns. Over several meetings, we discussed these observations and began compiling a list of codes to be used in further analysis. Next, we independently used this compilation of codes to analyze one interview. Attending to points of agreement, and especially disagreement, about our use of these codes was especially helpful for clarifying each code’s meaning and application in the data. Once we felt clearer about our initial coding schema, we each independently coded the remaining interviews, and the first and second authors reconvened to discuss and compare analyses. In many cases we applied codes similarly, but inevitably there were times when our perspectives differed, and we spent meaningful time discussing these differences. Importantly, TA does not problematize the notion that researchers approach data from different vantage points but instead frames diverse perspectives as a strength in developing themes (Braun et al., 2019). Whenever we were tasked with navigating differences in this and other phases of the analysis, we resisted reducing our conceptualizations to what overlapped. Instead, to enrich the findings, we dialogued about what our various perspectives added to our emerging understanding of these women’s experiences and pushed to capture those nuances. During this analytic phase, we also began constructing our themes by collating groups of codes into meaning-based units and making notes about broader patterns that concisely and precisely captured the essence and range of each theme. The final stage of the analysis focused on refining and summarizing the final themes, including combining similar themes into higher-level, overarching themes, excluding what was superfluous to answering the research question, and synthesizing each theme’s main ideas. The analysis was organized in phases but was inevitably recursive as we shifted back and forth between specific segments of text and our emergent conceptual understandings of the full set of interviews. Throughout, we aimed to “ensure that themes, and theme names, clearly, comprehensively and concisely capture[d] what is meaningful about the data” (Braun et al., 2019, p. 857).
Trustworthiness and reflexivity
We aimed for our final themes to be “grounded in the data” (Braun et al., 2019, p. 848) with awareness that our perspectives shaped our interpretations. To make these implicit influences more explicit, we paused frequently to discuss our observations in engagement with our identities, social locations, and experiences. Transparency with readers about our relevant identities is also important. All members of our analysis team currently or formerly work(ed) for a research institute connected to a community mental health clinic specializing in the clinical integration of religion and spirituality. We are White, cisgender, female, United States–born citizens. During analysis, I (Crabtree) was in my mid-30s, and I work as an assistant research director and licensed couple and family therapist at the institute. I grew up in the Midwest, where I completed my clinical training at an Evangelical seminary before obtaining a doctoral degree from a state land-grant university. Although raised a conservative Lutheran, my current spirituality aligns with progressive Mainline Christianity. I (Hydinger) was also in my mid-30s during analysis, and I work as a researcher at the institute. I grew up in the Deep South, a child of multiple generations of American citizens where English was the only language ever spoken. I moved to New England in high school and attended state universities for bachelor’s and Master of Arts degrees before enrolling in a United Methodist-affiliated theology school for a Master of Divinity. I am a born, raised, and ordained progressive Baptist. I (Oleson) was in my late-20s during analysis and worked as a researcher at the institute while completing my Master of Divinity. I grew up in Southern California, as the daughter of my mom who worked in full time ministry at the Evangelical mega-church in town. I now co-pastor a progressive trauma-informed online congregation that makes up a wide variety of Christian traditions.
Results
Although we did not expect to describe definitive trends for each challenge sub-group (i.e. expansive grandiosity, reactivity to difference and conflict, and hiding the self), we sampled across these strata to gain diverse perspectives. These challenges were dynamic, and the pathways to them equifinal. During the interviews, some participants even struggled to remember why they had identified with a specific challenge just months prior. Instead, participants’ experiences organized around four themes: (1) Humility is essential for Christian life but can be difficult to define, (2) Humble leadership involves negotiating intersecting identities across time and context, (3) Ministry pressure and personal tendencies challenge authentic humility, and (4) Authentic humility can and should be cultivated. Detailed descriptions follow, along with supporting participant quotes. Although we value the practice of accompanying participants’ words with demographic details, we recruited our sample from a small community and included identifying details selectively to protect participant confidentiality.
Theme 1: Humility is essential for Christian life but can be difficult to define
Participants unanimously agreed that humility was important for Christian life, but they often struggled to define humility’s meaning. One woman said of her conceptualization of humility before the workshop: “I’m going to be very honest, I probably didn’t think much about humility” (P4). Another said, “I don’t really know if I had a definition, to be honest” (P5). In lieu of clear conceptualizations, they shared about humility exemplars, negative definitions, and how their ideas about humility had been evolving.
Many participants pointed out exemplars to illustrate what they understood about humility. Referring to her upbringing, one woman said, “Humility has always been, just as I interpreted it as just this humble person—like Jesus. And it’s nothing more complex than I thought it would be, I guess?” (P6). Her comment suggested that one ought to be able to deduce humility’s meaning in the absence of a clear definition by looking to Jesus. Other participants also pointed to Jesus’ incarnation, service, and self-sacrifice as exemplifying humility. One said, “[Jesus] was humble . . . he had everything, but he came and came to serve . . . he was perfect” (P5). Another said of kenosis: “You know, Philippians, Christ humbled himself, humbled himself to the point of death. And you know, he is God. And you know he suffered beyond measure for us” (P2). Participants described other exemplars as well, such as pastors, friends, or co-workers. One woman described her male pastor’s public vulnerability as a demonstration of humility: He struggles with depression, struggles with self-shaming. He talks a lot about that. I don’t think I have ever heard that from church leaders. Just seeing how vulnerable he is in front of our congregation and seeing him tell us about how he, it’s important to be vulnerable. He needs support. (P6)
Participants also explicated their humility assumptions using negative definitions—describing what they believed humility was not. Some shared about exploitative or grandiose behavior in others. One woman described an affluent family member who had taken advantage of others financially, and another recalled a ministry who had belittled her publicly. More often, participants described characteristics they saw in themselves. One woman said, With my sharp tongue, I started to notice certain things were starting to ruffle feathers . . . I may not have thought it was that big of a deal, but I have to put myself in people’s shoes and think about how they might feel if this were said or done to me. (P3)
Another woman shared that since the workshop, she had reflected on her intentions for ministry: “Am I serving . . . because I care and love you or am I doing this because I want to be validated or appreciated” (P5)? One spoke of her theology of sin, and by extension herself, to illustrate what she believed was the antithesis of humility: “I mean, at our core we are prideful people. We just are. We all have, man included, we have the tendency to be prideful” (P2).
A few participants indicated that they had started thinking more intentionally about what humility means. One said, “I really never thought about [humility] and now I am super aware of it and keep thinking about it in my daily life” (P6). Some felt invited toward more nuanced humility meanings that make space for strengths and accomplishments. One woman shared about learning conflicting messages about humility and that her understanding had developed since the workshop, especially as she identified her need to listen to others more intentionally: [Growing up], humility was often like knowing your place, making sure you are taking the lowest spot, almost like devaluing who you are. I have never been that person. My parents never raised me to be that person. I don’t understand this kind of humility . . . [now] for me it was more, how do I enter a room? How do I even, how do I hold space in the room . . . Sometimes it’s okay to be the most knowledgeable person in the room and be silent. It’s okay to just listen sometimes. (P4)
Theme 2: Humble leadership involves negotiating intersecting identities across time and context
Participants’ humility experiences were not static; instead, they described fluidity and tension in their experiences and attempts to lead with humility as they negotiated their own identities across time and various contexts. Largely, these negotiations involved navigating power differences, which were not always straightforward. For instance, some struggled to identify the extent of their ability to influence in systems with high cultural regard for elders or tradition. Younger participants described feeling silenced or unable to contribute ideas that might help the church progress: As a younger person I’ll see a better way to do it or feel the Lord has led me to bring visionary ideas and I feel because of the tradition they are so steeped in sometimes . . . it forces you to be humble or it challenges you to be humble. (P3)
These generational differences were especially complicated for participants navigating dual relationships and leading alongside family members in their ministry contexts. One woman in her 30s explained, “Serving with my mother-in-law and father-in-law, as my senior leaders, takes a lot of humility” (P4). Others felt challenged by their theological training, especially when it exceeded that of church leaders. One multiracial participant reflected that her education had afforded her more biblical and theological knowledge than elders she had long admired, and she struggled to hold this knowledge with sensitivity to her church’s values.
Education also revealed inequalities or new perspectives that created tension in participants’ communities: Even though I live in the inner city and have a lot of struggles with my neighbors I have been afforded a lot of awesome opportunities such as . . . being able to go to college, whereas a lot of my peers have not had the opportunity. (P3)
Participants also contended with how racial or cultural factors influenced their humility experiences. One Black participant shared that her seminary education revealed to her that she had been disadvantaged racially across several decades in religious leadership: “The books I have been reading about race, culture, and community, I’m glad I read those books as a believer because I would have tipped over into rage” (P1). As a first-generation immigrant, she also recalled several instances following her arrival to the United States when others accused her of not being humble because of cultural communication differences. A Chinese participant seemed conflicted about confronting a White church leader about a BIPOC member’s experience of isolation in a White-dominant group: “[It took] courage for me to talk to her and not know how she would react when I’m like, ‘You guys are all White, you wouldn’t understand’” (P6). These kinds of stories elucidated how cultural norms and social expectations were relevant for how these women experienced and were trying to live with humility, including how they tried to navigate situations in which one or more of their identities held less social power.
Interestingly, the participants seemed more hesitant about the extent to which gender influenced their humility experiences. For example, when asked whether they thought women and men might be challenged differently with humility, some participants hypothesized that men may be more susceptible to grandiosity and narcissism (for example, versus self-deprecation) but struggled to commit to this idea. Another woman, whose personal theology and professional ministry endorsed male headship, had been in ministry with her husband for several decades before she received a paycheck in her name: “When I got my first paycheck, I held it for a month. I wouldn’t cash it. I just laid it out on my dining room table” (P1).
A few participants highlighted gendered double standards that challenged their humility. They described discrepancies in church communities’ expectations for women to dress modestly with unclear expectations for men’s attire: I think that we have a lot of conversation and put responsibility on women to change, but we don’t have conversations with men on how to not objectify women’s bodies or hyper-sexualize . . . A man isn’t going to come to church and be told, “Oh your suit is too tight. Oh, you’re showing off your arms.” (P3)
Some also discussed their religious communities’ expectations for family roles and forms. A married participant commented that “studying wasn’t considered as valuable as me being at home with my kids, cooking dinner, and making sure my husband is being fed when he gets home” (P4). A White woman in her 60s commented on how women from her community went to great lengths to provide hospitality to men but did not as eagerly extend that hospitality to fellow women.
Gender also emerged in relation to other identities. For example, a multiracial participant discussed her views on the intersection of race and gender within the Black community: “Black women are raised to be strong, independent, self-reliant, ambitious, whereas Black men are loved on because . . . the world is so harsh toward them” (P3). A Black participant described a time when she and her husband, both in church leadership, began dressing more casually for services. Congregants approached her, but not her husband, with disapproval: “It’s like that cultural upbringing where there are certain things that I feel women were held more accountable for than men were in terms of personal presentation” (P4). Another participant reflected on cultural attitudes she witnessed towards male Chinese pastors versus American pastors, stating that Chinese pastors “live with a lot of high expectations. Therefore, it is easy to . . . make them feel like they are better people” (P6).
Theme 3: Ministry pressure and personal tendencies challenge authentic humility
In addition to negotiating their identities across time and context, participants described the challenges of trying to be sincerely humble in ministry life. A couple of participants expressed appreciation for how the workshop illuminated challenges for religious leaders’ efforts to live humbly, with honest appreciation for their own strengths and limitations, and be perceived by others as humble, which they perceived as necessary for effective leadership. One said, I learned how complex and almost difficult [humility] is. And how a lot of church leaders struggle with it because of their identity, I guess, as a church leader. I guess it’s harder for them to be vulnerable and also be humble about their faults because they also have an expectation on them when they’re serving in church. (P6)
They connected these challenges to (a) ministry-related dynamics, such as pressure to meet others’ expectations in ministry work, and (b) personal characteristics that made humility difficult under those circumstances, such as fear of vulnerability or personal inclinations toward perfectionism and achievement.
Contextual and systemic dynamics in ministry emerged as a common factor in the ways participants struggled to live with and demonstrate humility. Several felt burdened by others’ expectations, including making themselves palatable or fit predefined leadership molds, which made confronting personal limitations and asking for help challenging. One woman said of the pressure to maintain an established image as a successful leader, which she was aware she had internalized: “I think not disappointing others is how I measure self-worth . . . people usually crave compliments, but actually compliments form some kind of pressure, stress, a burden to me sometimes” (P7). Another said this about the pressure she felt to uphold others’ perceptions of her competence: “I feel like I’m living like a double life where I put up an expectation, image for other people and then I have myself, and I can’t let other people be disappointed because then my image is shattered” (P6). These dynamics felt lonely and isolating for some participants, especially when they did not feel genuinely seen or valued. One woman said, “I struggled . . . with loneliness with just feeling like . . . no one really cares for me. I am just doing, doing, doing. There is no appreciation” (P5). Another said, I don’t see folks here as people that really want to see the true person . . . on a Sunday, I really have to stir myself up to prepare to give out, to be that leader in the church . . . I always feel as though I have to present this look as I am deeply happy. I’m not. I’m actually not, I feel lonely in ministry, I feel undervalued. (P1)
Participants described personal characteristics that made humility challenging as well, and these were exacerbated by the pressure they felt in their ministry roles. Many described a general fear of vulnerability, especially related to what they perceived were weaknesses or limitations, which often perpetuated over-functioning and not asking for help: I don’t want to be vulnerable because I want to deal with it myself. I don’t want to show other people that I’m not competent. I don’t want to show other people that I’m not able to manage my weaknesses and I’m afraid other people will see my weakness. You know what, I think it also has to deal with how I am building up an image for people and I’m afraid people will see, like I will fail if people see the other side of the image. (P6)
Others felt burdened by the high and perfectionistic expectations they had of themselves, which also made accepting limitations difficult. One said of her seminary grades: When I’m looking at my grade, if it’s not an A, something happens within me. I feel like I did my very best and deserve an A. I got a 98 on a paper and I’m like, why didn’t I get those two points? (P1)
Sometimes participants saw how these tendencies were adaptations to oppressive systems. One Black woman, who described feeling considerable and lifelong pressure to conform to White standards, said, “I struggle with perfectionism . . . and feeling like I received positive reinforcement and extrinsic motivation based off things I did” (P3).
Theme 4: Authentic humility can and should be cultivated
Despite challenges of defining humility and navigating their identities, professional roles, and personal tendencies, participants agreed that cultivating sincere, nuanced humility—which holds appreciation for limitations as well as strengths, and is other-regarding without excessive deference or desire to meet others’ expectations—ought to remain central to Christian formation. Most expressed gratitude for opportunities to reflect on their experiences through the workshop and interview, and they described increasing desire to grow in humility as they planned for or remained in leadership roles. In reflecting on how humility would be salient for future leadership, one participant reflected on Jesus: “He never [said], ‘I’ll show you.’ He loved people where they were” (P2). Another woman reflected on a new, felt sense that she needed to spend more time listening to God and others: I don’t want to do anything because it’s just what I want. If that’s the case, then we should go with what these other folks want. But I want to be in a position where I can hear where they are coming from. (P4)
Broadly, the participants described humility as emerging a) organically over time and through life experience, and b) actively through practices and intentional efforts to grow.
Some participants compared youthful, self-focused versions of themselves to more learned, present selves, commenting that they had become humbler with aged and life experience. Upending assumptions about knowledge and power, one woman felt humbled by her work with young children: “You learn a lot from the ones learning in the little chairs” (P8). Although some described increasing awareness of the world’s contours over time, several described how adversity had had a humbling effect and gave them new perspectives. The same woman who felt humbled by children said, “Sometimes something really tragic has to happen” (P8). Appealing to theological beliefs about God’s role in adversity, some even described these challenges as sanctioned: “I think the more experiences . . . and sometimes the trials that [God] gives us makes us humble” (P2). Although difficult, two participants shared how they felt humbler and closer with God because their faith buoyed them through challenging times. One student spoke of “really clinging onto God and asking for his [sic] help and wisdom” (P6). Some participants even asked God to provide them with trials that would grow their humility. A participant preparing for a secular ministry context explained this facilitated closeness with God: “I’m asking to be challenged and my impatience and my triggers [tested]” (P3).
Participants also described active, intentional efforts to become humbler, which had become more prevalent since the workshop. One woman reflected on her intentions: “I think being humble is something you have to be conscientious about” (P3). These efforts took many forms. Participants described spiritual and personal practices they had adopted, including journaling, exercise, meditation, prayer, and reading scripture. One woman described how a morning routine to “do some prayers and meditation and reading God’s word” had offered humble grounding for her day (P5). Participants also shared about effortful perspective-taking as they tried to normalize their own limitations and hold in mind others’ experiences, vantage points, and strengths. One woman said, “Because you can’t have it all, and what you don’t have you just have to trust it. We aren’t going to see everything” (P2). Another said of her attempts to suspend judgment in conflict and listen: “If someone comes and they are like, they just don’t understand, right? Rather than getting frustrated and upset immediately I’ve been sitting and listening and hearing people explain to me” (P4). Participants described other relational efforts as well, such as maintaining awareness that “everybody, even the smallest part, everybody has a place. And that’s not my design [but God’s]” (P2) or seeking feedback from others. One participant shared how beginning therapy made it easier “to open up more” with others and provided a sense that she could “get through this. I can keep going through the day” (P5).
Discussion
This study employed qualitative methods to investigate humility experiences of women enrolled in an Evangelical seminary in the United States. Guided by procedures for reflexive thematic analysis (Braun et al., 2019), we arrived at four overarching themes: (1) Humility is essential for Christian life but can be difficult to define, (2) Humble leadership involves negotiating intersecting identities across time and context, (3) Ministry pressure and personal tendencies challenge authentic humility, and (4) Authentic humility can and should be cultivated. This study advances scholarship on religious leader humility, specifically among those who are in training, by responding to calls for empirical attention to leaders’ identities, such as gender and race (Wolfteich et al., 2016), and offering findings that might further nuance understandings of already-complex humility experiences observed in Christian religious leaders.
Humility’s importance and ambiguity
The women interviewed for this study unanimously endorsed humility as salient for Christian formation and supported ongoing humility development. Consistent with other research (Ruffing et al., 2020; Wolfteich et al., 2021), they described active and receptive means for humility growth. However, we were surprised they found defining humility so challenging, and some participants commented on their emerging, real-time awareness that they had received little explicit guidance on humility despite its relevance for Christian life. At minimum, this ambiguity highlights a need to inquire about research participants’ understandings humility or other virtues in question. We know of only one other study that has asked Abrahamic religious leaders to define what humility meant to them, and their responses varied (Wolfteich et al., 2021). Scholars’ ways of conceptualizing humility might not match how humility is understood in the populations they study, and there is risk of imposing meaning that does not fit.
The participants’ difficulty defining humility might also signal that humility might be somewhat ubiquitous in some Christian environments, and clearer definition and operationalization may be needed. Although we did not specifically inquire about participants’ theologies, there would be tremendous value in doing so in future studies. Some participants spontaneously referred to kenosis, Jesus’ incarnation, and Jesus’ way life as exemplary humble behavior, but interpretations of these biblical narratives vary. For instance, Pardue (2012) outlined a variety of ways theologians have understood the relationship between humility and kenosis, including the need for synonymous self-emptying, moderate views maintaining kenosis as central to Christian doctrine but as a dialectic involving divine power and sacrifice, and strong critique of any “kenotic model of humility” (p. 274) because of concern for overemphasizing the loss of self. Other theological propositions are also likely relevant for humility understandings, such as views on sin and the human condition (e.g. Saiving Goldstein, 1960). While an extensive review of theological perspectives on and relevant to humility is beyond our scope (for a review of some classical perspectives, see Wolfteich et al., 2019), that participants were unclear how to articulate their understandings but made reference to theological ideas suggests a need for greater clarity about how theology might be operative in efforts to live with humility, which is a core concern for practical theologians who are interested in the intersections of theology and practice (e.g. Wolfteich et al., 2016). For example, without clear operationalization, humility promotion by way of kenosis could promote excessive or limitless deference as model behavior (Floyd-Thomas, 2020). In response to scholars’ concerns about the effects of certain virtue forms (Bloomfield, 2021; Captari et al., 2023), future research could directly inquire about theological perspectives on and adjacent to humility and examine relationships between of these beliefs and outcomes such as mental health, well-being, leadership effectiveness, or relational functioning.
The participants’ ambiguity about humility’s meaning but ability to describe humility in less direct ways (for example, by describing others’ behavior) might also point to a distinction between experiential and cognitive understandings akin to the distinction between God images and God concepts—the former referring to “heart knowledge” acquired through lived experience and the latter referring to theological and conceptual “head knowledge” (Davis et al., 2013, p. 52). These distinctions align with Sandage and colleagues’ (2020) Relational Spirituality Model, which posits that spirituality, or ways of relating to the sacred, involves the limbic system and its development through relational experience. In the absence of a definition, participants approximated a sense of humility by describing of experiential encounters with humility or what they perceived as its opposite. Considering cognitive and limbic or experiential knowledge illuminated some of the complex ways theology and experience could relate. For example, one woman identified as being most challenged by expansive grandiosity and spontaneously explicated her belief that humanity is inherently prideful (cognitive). However, she presented in the interview as self-effacing (experiential). We surmised that her theology influenced her self-perception, leading her to minimize her own strengths and contributions rather than hold them in tension with her limitations as a healthy dimension of humility. We also saw evidence of women negotiating conflicts between hierarchical theologies of gender (cognitive) and their own experiences of gendered power (experiential), or implicating God in adverse experiences that they experienced as humbling. These observations, and participants’ references to their theological beliefs, highlight the need for ongoing empirical inquiry into the intersections of theology and experiential ways of knowing and their effects on humility experiences among religious leaders with various identities (Wolfteich et al., 2016).
Humility as dynamic and intersectional
The dynamicity of these women’s experiences was evident and points to the need for conceptualizing the virtuousness of humility in context. These women’s narratives corroborated literature citing the complexities of humility for religious leaders broadly (e.g. Hook et al., 2015) and were consistent with Ruffing and colleagues’ (2020) findings that some women and BIPOC religious leaders felt challenged by their visible roles while simultaneously navigating invisible identities. Largely, these women’s discernment humility’s meaning with awareness of their own identities and personal tendencies often involved navigating power differences across various contexts. Although we recruited participants for this study based on one shared identity (i.e. gender), others like race, ethnicity, age, cultural norms, or marital status inevitably factored into these women’s experiences. These dynamics are consistent with an intersectionality framework (Crenshaw, 1989, 2017) and womanist forms of virtue ethics (Floyd-Thomas, 2020), which consider the interactions between multiple social identities, contexts, and power in lived experience. Importantly, an intersectionality perspective is concerned with more than the concept of overlapping identities, however, and additionally “centers understanding how a given phenomenon is inextricably intertwined with societal and institutional structures and interlocking systems of privilege and oppression” (Buchanan & Wiklund, 2021, p. 26). This is consistent with participants’ descriptions of contextual, ministry-related pressures such as the felt need to meet others’ expectations, or act humble in ways that felt forced, and how these pressures pulled at their tendencies to over-function or fear vulnerability. We suspect the dynamic nature of participants’ experiences partially explains why some struggled to remember their reasons for choosing a particular humility challenge a few months prior; different identity and context configurations pull for different challenges.
The participants’ accounts of gender as relevant for humility were also curious. Although these women felt challenged in their humility by gender-related dynamics (e.g. attire standards, expectations for family life and education), we were surprised that some expressed hesitance around them relative to other factors such as race or age. One interpretation could be that gender indeed felt less salient. However, this hesitance also could have signaled complexity in making meaning of gender-related challenges in Evangelical contexts. Although we did not specifically inquire about participants’ gender theologies, some spontaneously explicated adherence to complementarianism, a theological position endorsing male headship, which is consistent with trends in wider Evangelicalism (Schnabel, 2016). Evangelical theologies of gender tend to differ from positions on some other non-dominant identities. For example, Evangelicals tend to espouse ideas like racial reconciliation with intentions to promote racial equality (Oyakawa, 2019). Naming gender-related humility challenges could feel complicated or invoke some level of cognitive dissonance relative to other identities if personal or contextual theological commitments explicitly promote a gendered hierarchy. Cultural gender norms and values might also be relevant, as they can vary significantly. Although the participants all identified as heterosexual, our observations also led us to wonder about humility experiences of seminarians and religious leaders with minoritized gender and sexual identities, especially because of the prominence of anti-LGBTQ+ views in many Christian communities (Masci & Lipka, 2015; Smith, 2017).
Our findings advance understanding that humility among religious leaders seems fraught with complexity related to intersecting role requirements, personal identities, the influence and dynamics of wider systems, and theological perspectives on humility’s meaning. Our study design and findings do not provide direct evidence for disproportionately negative effects of humility promotion among our study participants (Bloomfield, 2021)— this would be difficult to establish without a comparative sample and a different research design—but they do reveal participants’ considerable efforts to navigate complex dynamics in their attempts to cultivate sincere humility. Future research should build on our findings to explore these complexities with different samples, including those with more social power (e.g. men, predominantly White). Quantitative studies measuring outcomes such as mental health or well-being or assessing endorsement of specifical theological beliefs relevant for humility could be especially useful for estimating the effects of navigating these complexities on different groups.
Seminarian formation implications
This study also sheds light on some potential implications for seminarian formation. Seminary might be an optimal environment for humility development, as students encounter—perhaps in novel ways—new and diverse understandings of self, God, and the work of ministry leadership, among other important identity differences. Navigating these differences in relationally mature ways necessarily invokes capacities such as humility. However, we recommend seminaries not rely on exposure to difference for humility development but instead give it explicit attention. The women in this study felt affirmed by the workshop’s discussion of humility’s complexities for religious leaders, signaling a need for opportunities for seminarians to reflect on and dialogue about these realities. Other disciplines have grappled with some of these challenges, too. For example, organizational research has demonstrated associations between perceived self- and other-rated leader humility and team effectiveness (Rego et al., 2018), but leader humility has also been associated with reduced agency and an increase in others’ undermining behaviors (Zapata & Hayes-Jones, 2019). Furthermore, in a sample of Air Force officers, Ete and colleagues (2020) found a curvilinear relationship with subordinate cooperation. Religious leaders could find themselves in a similar humility predicament, that is, appearing too grandiose or too focused on their own limitations may compromise their abilities to influence others or affect change. All seminarians may benefit from considering dialectical views of humility that resist the poles of grandiosity and self-effacement, and we encourage theological integration and discernment in reflection and dialogue.
However, these women’s experiences also suggest that humility might be best conceptualized with sensitivity to individual persons’ identities and unique contexts and with attention to potential benefits or costs for each person. For example, some of the women in this study felt pressure to meet others’ standards, feared vulnerability, or worried about others seeing their imperfections. Although no one is immune to such relational and systemic challenges, and we are mindful that our study design did not provide a comparative sample, research suggests that humility is not perceived equitably across various levels of social power (Priebe & Van Tongeren, 2023). In humility discussions, Chatelier and Jackson (2023) proposed that educators suspend judgment about humility as positive without first understanding its historical, political, and social operationalization, writing that “if valorised as morally good in a way that is detached from power dynamics, then teaching for humility is potentially dangerous,” and “any appeal to humility within education needs to account for its potential to heal and harm” (pp. 183–184). This kind of critical analysis and practical operationalization could also push for more clarity about humility’s precise meaning for Christian life. We see value in explicitly inviting seminarians to grapple with these questions, as well as offering support for those who have difficult or complicated experiences with humility based on their identities. Some of the women in this study came to realize that their previous orientations toward humility primarily emphasized limitations and minimized strengths, and they were working toward holding greater appreciation for their strengths and capacities. Identifying theological, familial, and/or social origins of humility meanings might help scaffold this meaning-making process.
Limitations and future directions
This study includes several limitations. Generalizability is not a primary goal for qualitative studies with nonprobability samples, as they generally intend to “explore meaning and processes of people’s everyday lives to gain an in-depth understanding of situations and actions” (Carminati, 2018, p. 2096). However, we are mindful of the ways our sample demographics limit the applicability of our findings. We interviewed a small number of women from one Evangelical seminary in the northeast United States, and all but one of the participants identified as Evangelical. Future research could focus on women from other streams of Christianity or in training for leadership in other religious traditions or geographical and global regions, as they might describe their humility experiences quite differently. In addition, because we only interviewed cisgender, heterosexual women, we cannot say anything about how their experiences compared to those of men and persons with diverse gender and sexual identities. Racial and ethnic dynamics might also shape different understandings of humility (Paine et al., 2018), and we did not focus our interview questions around those areas of diversity. We urge researchers to further consider the roles of identity and context with diverse samples in their study of humility among seminarians and religious leaders. We would expect identity and context considerations to remain relevant, but the nuances of those considerations would likely vary according to each study’s sample. Although qualitative methods lend well the complexities of these considerations, quantitative studies would also be useful to examine and estimate trends in larger samples. For instance, these studies could examine whether specific understandings of humility tend to be associated with indicators of well-being, leadership effectiveness, theological beliefs, or personality traits, and assess whether participants’ identities moderate any of these effects. Furthermore, some women commented on parts of their seminary experiences, but we did not ask about seminary specifically. Asking pointed questions about their experiences of humility in seminary could foster more fine-tuned recommendations for healthy humility cultivation in seminary formation, and future research could attend to this gap. The literature on humility also includes growing attention to intellectual humility (IH)), including some of the unique challenges of IH for religious leaders (Choe et al., 2023). The dynamics of IH amid seminary training and religious leadership could be valuable for future research among those with marginalized identities (Sandage & Choi, 2022). Finally, and relatedly, we did not ask these women about specific points of theological integration but instead focused on dimensions of their experiences and identities. Given the centrality of humility for Christian formation and the ways theology emerged organically at times in the interviews, we see intentional inquiry about relevant theology and beliefs, with astute attention to personal identity and context, as ripe for future empirical investigation.
Conclusion
Humility is a positive trait that can be complex to practice for religious leaders, but more empirical research is needed on how Christian leader identities and contexts bear on experiences of this virtue. To begin addressing this literature gap, we interviewed Christian seminarian women about their humility experiences. The study’s findings affirm the continued importance of humility for Christian formation and elucidate new perspectives on humility as dynamic and involving the negotiation of multiple identities and contexts. Furthermore, they illuminate some ambiguity about humility’s precise meaning for participants despite its relevance for Christian life. Although this study includes several limitations, it makes novel contributions to the study of humility among religious leaders and provides directions for future research. Specifically, to better inform the formation for Christian leaders, this study establishes a need to attend not only the construct of humility but also the intersections of who is inhabiting this particular trait and how they understand theology’s relevance for humility.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation on “Developing Humility in Leadership” (#60622).
