“Our ability to be daring leaders will never be greater than our capacity for vulnerability.”
Brene Brown, Dare to Lead
Vulnerability … that feeling of being exposed; none of us really like it. Without vulnerability, we hold back. We protect parts of ourselves so that we won’t be harmed. Better said, we protect ourselves from the fear that we will be harmed. Without vulnerability, we show a partial view of who we really are. Vulnerability requires that we let down our guard … that we deny the temptation to appear to be something that we really aren’t … or to be something less than we really are.
Most of us wouldn’t admit to wanting to be a vulnerable leader; however, we’re more likely to say that we want to be an authentic leader. But the reality is this … you can’t be an authentic leader without also being willing to become vulnerable; vulnerability and authenticity go hand in hand. If you are only exposing a part of who you are and withholding your complete self, no matter how justifiable the reason, you are lacking authenticity. And the truth is this … people who are inauthentic are difficult to follow.
Perhaps you’ve had a leader like that. They seem nice enough but there is something about their leadership that doesn’t seem quite real. It might have been a stretch to say that they were inauthentic but that’s likely what we feel when leaders hold back from us.
So how do we lead and model vulnerability? Probably the simplest but most difficult thing is this . . . We must take the risk. Vulnerability is a risk. With any risk, there is the possibility that it might go wrong. And that possibility of being wrong holds a whole lot of fear attached to it. What if we share too much … or to the wrong person … or at the wrong time. And behind it all this thought is looming in the inner parts of our hearts and minds … “I might just fail at this vulnerability thing.”
The reality is that you probably already have. You’ve likely already proven to yourself that you are a failure at vulnerability. And that’s probably why you are afraid to try again. There is never a guarantee that vulnerability will end well. Actually, that’s what makes vulnerability what it is; if it were a safe thing, we would all do it because there would be no risk.
If you desire to be an authentic leader … one that people follow … then you must be willing to risk vulnerability. Risk. It’s scary. But it’s worth it because that is what will make you an authentic leader … one that people will WANT to follow.
