The hallmark of a great leader is someone who can extract a greater output than the sum of a teams parts. Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs is the hallmark of a humble leader. He was the pillar for the most successful team from the late 90s to the early 2010s. The Spurs won the championship 5 times with Duncan at the helm, yet not once would you hear him take the credit for winning, despite him being one of the best players of all time. It was his humble, team-first nature that permeated throughout the organization, giving them the reputation as having the most beautiful offences in the league. It was his quite, calm leadership that kept the cohesion for 20 years. He was instrumental in mentoring younger players as are the entire organisation.

This quote shows how even though he's one of the greatest players to ever play the game he attributes it to all the people around him. No matter how many NBA championships he won, no matter how many individual awards he won, he still attributed everything to everyone else. Tim Duncan was not only one of the greatest to ever play the game but he was the most universally adored. It would be just about impossible to find someone who has a negative opinion on the man.

I personally resonate with leaders who are humble. People who are first to bring other people up, first to give credit to others. As a junior developer if I'm working with someone who's more senior than I am and they are first to give me credit rather than themselves, then that will motivate me, reinforcing the notion that the work I do is noticed. On the other hand, if the senior developer takes all the credit and doesn't praise anyone else then I don't want to work with them again. The same thing happens in basketball when one person takes all the credit in a team sport it causes the entire team to be disengaged. Team chemistry can't be destroyed any quicker than when one person takes all the credit. The longer you take all the credit the more people won’t want to work with you. You might get recruited for big roles in higher up positions but you will see less and less success as you continue to alienate the people around you.

No matter how good you are in whatever you do you, you won't be perfect or even the best in your team for everything. There will be people better at something and if you can’t step aside and let them take the credit then you won’t have a team much longer. The thing about giving credit to others is that the more you do it, the more they do it without you asking. The more credit you give others the more you get back in return. You might be on a team and worry that people don't know what you did but if you're on at least a decent team then they will compliment you at least as much as you compliment them. Being humble breeds into the group as a whole, it brings the team up with you rather than just raising yourself. It’s about the good of the team not the good of the individual, the more you humble yourself and put the team first the more success you will see both from a team perspective and from an individual perspective. You don’t have to be on one team for long, because before you know it others will want you on their teams. You will be recruited, sort after and poached. The more you do for the team, the more the team does for you. The more you humble yourself the more you will become a better person. Someone that can be a positive contributor to a team but also a positive contributor to life and those around you.

Life isn’t all about being the most successful person around. Life is about being the best person you can be and the more humble you are, the more people will want to be around you. The easier it is for people to be around you. You will struggle again and again to have meaningful relationships if you constantly tell people how good you are, taking all the credit for team achievements. On the contrary, if you praise others first and you rarely talk about oneself then people will flock to you. People want to be around others who make them feel good. People want to be around the people who make them feel like a person, an equal. You can feel it very quickly when someone thinks they're better than you or better than all the people around them. They might produce incredible amounts of work on an individual level but people become off-put by them. People won’t work those extra hours, or go the extra mile for someone that's arrogant and thinks they’re vastly superior to everyone. People go the extra mile when they respect and admire a person, not when they’re told to.

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