Amer Kaissi, author of Humbitious: The Power of Low-Ego, High-Drive Leadership

Bill Ringle and Amer Kaissi discuss the benefits and disasters resulting from business leaders who lacked (sufficient) humility, the essential component to combine with ambition for small business leaders and founders.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com  for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will lock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

Interview Insights

Top 3 Takeaways

  1. While ambition and humility shouldn’t necessarily be balanced, each should always be present.
  2. If leaders are humble enough to acknowledge their mistakes, it allows their team members to admit when one of them makes a mistake.
  3. Leaders who promote psychological safety create highly efficient and productive teams.

Read the Show Notes from this Episode

  • His mother, whose passion for leadership and serving others has been Amer’s most significant influence. [01:20]
  • The similarities and differences between being an organizational leader versus being a leader at home. [06:04]
  • CASE: Travis Kalanick, Uber’s founder, is about self-awareness and humility. [08:13]
  • CASE: In contrast to Travis, Jared was someone Amer worked with, whose promotion as COO almost did not happen because of his lack of self-awareness. He acknowledged his mistake, worked to better himself, and eventually proved he deserved the COO position. [12:21]
  • CASE: Steve Jobs (v2.0) is probably one of the best examples of being humbitious. After being booted from Apple, the company he co-founded with Steve Wozniak, Jobs returned a better version of himself and became a more effective and innovative leader. [15:32]
  • Why humility and ambition don’t have to be in perfect balance all the time. [18:26]
  • CASE: Rachel is a leader who proved that ambition and humility can still be conveyed while working online. [21:02]
  • What can be learned about leadership from the Marshmallow Challenge? The Marshmallow Challenge is where participants (CEOs, lawyers, MBA graduates, and kindergartners) are challenged to build the tallest structure using spaghetti sticks, yarns, and a marshmallow. [23:44]
  • My Quest for the Best lightning round begins. [28:07]

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Expert Bio

Dr. Amer Kaissi (“Ah-mur Ky-See”) is an award winning Professor of Healthcare Administration at Trinity University, a Top-15 program.
He is the author of the book “Intangibles: The Unexpected Traits of High-Performing Healthcare Leaders,” which has won the 2019 American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Book of the Year award.

At Trinity, Dr. Kaissi teaches courses in Leadership, Professional Development and Public Speaking and is the Director of the Executive Program. His research focuses on leadership, coaching, and strategy.

Dr. Kaissi is a national speaker with Huron/Studer Group and a faculty member with ACHE. He is a certified Executive & Physician Coach and works with top leaders from all over the country to maximize their leadership potential.

His most recent book “Humbitious: the power of low-ego, high-drive leadership” was published in January of 2022. Dr. Kaissi, an avid soccer fan, lives in San Antonio, Texas with his wife and two teenagers.

Contact Info and Social Media for Amer Kaissi

  • Travels from: San Antonio, TX

Resources Mentioned During the Interview

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites and other resources that we discussed, so you can explore further.

Published by Amer Kaissi

Humbitious by Amer Kaissi

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