The effects of humble leadership tend to cascade down to the rest of the organization, turning leaders into genuine role models. These effects have been demonstrated in recent studies by Brad Owens from the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University and David Hekman from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado. When leaders behave humbly, employees emulate this behavior and display more modesty, admit mistakes, share credit with others, and are more receptive to others’ ideas and feedback. Using data from 607 individuals grouped into 161 teams (both in research labs and in real work environments), the authors demonstrated a social-contagion effect for humble leadership, which enhanced selfless and collaborative behaviors in their followers and, in turn, in team performance.

Leaders use the “ride-along” or “shadowing” method when they watch, follow, and question employees, customers, and citizens. This usually means going deeper than MBWA, which entails strolling around and having brief chats with people about their troubles. Taking the time to watch, talk to, and follow people as they try to do their work and struggle with the broken parts of an organization can shatter a leader’s delusions about the causes, costs, and cures for friction troubles.

The lesson, and perhaps the irony, of Tsedal and Sebastian’s study is that executives who deferred to subordinates moved up the pecking order faster than those who refused to bend to their underlings’ will and wisdom: Leaders were granted more power because they gave it away. Yet deference and “flattening” the hierarchy aren’t always the right moves. The University of Michigan’s Lindy Greer shows that the best leaders are adept at “flexing” the hierarchy.

In a study reported in the MIT Sloan Management Review, more than 200 executives were asked to reconnect with such people and to use their interactions to get information or advice that might help them on an important work project. The executives reported that the advice they received from these dormant sources was, on average, more valuable and novel than what they obtained from their more active relationships. In fact, many of the “weak ties” activated by Granovetter’s job hunters were connections developed earlier in their careers that had been dormant.

An academic study conducted by professors Gianpiero Petriglieri, Sue Ashford, and Amy Wrzesniewski, for example, found that successful professional gig workers take special care to build their “tribe,” a handful of sustaining relationships with peers. As one person in their study told them, “My ability to process, develop, and grow as a human being and understand who I am in the work I’m doing comes from the conversations that I have with these folks. These people are how I know what I’m supposed to be doing.