The Role of Class Privilege and Humility in Leadership

Although the impact of class-based privilege is pervasive and long-lasting, upper-class individuals often fail to acknowledge that they have benefitted from unearned advantages and opportunities in achieving their success. Instead, those benefitting from class privileges often proactively deny and deflect these advantages, motivated by ideologies of meritocracy to reaffirm their image as “self-made”. Expanding on this line of work, we tackle this phenomenon through an interpersonal lens by examining how observers perceive and react to individuals’ self-awareness regarding the privileges associated with their social class background. Integrating theoretical insights from the social class and humility literatures, we propose acknowledging privilege as an impression management tactic for leaders from higher (vs. lower) social class backgrounds to signal their humility, which consequently enhances their likelihood of further getting promoted within an organization. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our work.