Background:
Leadership has been confronted with volatility and uncertainty even before this current crisis. As interest in global pandemic and its impact developed, leadership traits have been shifting from an ‘outcome-based’ approach to a ‘vulnerability led’ approach where the mere narrative around sustainable existence is being discussed over projections in the balance sheet and expansion of operations.
Therefore, the question which needs to be explored is, can our leaders adopt this ‘new normal’ of leadership trait of nonchalantly, discussing their vulnerability with their teams and other various members of the organisation they belong? To understand this, we need to dig deep on the very genesis of vulnerability and how that shows up within leaders.
Why is expressing your vulnerability so difficult?
To explain this concept, I would like to refer to Thomas. J. DeLong from Harvard Business School. He coined a 2 × 2 diagram as below to explain the very genesis of vulnerability.
If we examine the matrix, we will see most leaders assume that the top right quadrant is the place to doing the right thing well since it would significantly enable them to achieve their goals and grow. It is a great feeling to master some skills and perform it the correct way at the right time and in the appropriate content. The critical discussion in the diagram is the challenge in getting to the point where one can do the right thing. How to get to this quadrant?
The only way to get there is through the bottom right quadrant. The only way we can do well is to do something ‘poorly first’. According to DeLong, there is no other way.
Unfortunately, most leaders of today are reticent to try something new for fear of looking dumb, awkward, hesitant, incompetent and so on, thus exposing their vulnerability and impeding their growth trajectory.
In these current scenarios, this mindset may not be the right approach to take. The mistaken assumption is that if people find what is underneath, they’d remove themselves from our lives. The reality is that if we share the ups and downs of our human and professional experiences the right way, in the right context, we can build deeper connections. In so doing, we play (i.e. client/customer, boss/employee, fundraiser/philanthropist) and connect with each other as humans.
What are some of the Leadership Actions for Vulnerability?
Now that we have understood the genesis of Vulnerability in leaders, let’s attempt to operationalise some aspects of vulnerability. Here are a few recommendations based on some of the best practices currently available.
- Encourage over Tolerate – Long gone are the days where leaders pretend to be omniscience. A crisis of what we are witnessing now will involuntarily expose a leader’s weaknesses and blind spots. If leaders pretend to have all the answers and are reluctant to admit to mistakes or ask for help, the candidates in the leadership pipeline will inadvertently adopt the same mindset. This would lead to a downward spiral as what was observed in Enron, Boeing and Wells Fargo. Leaders are willing to embrace transparency will create a uniquely fertile culture in which would encourage free and frank exchanges about blind spots and developmental needs are not tolerated but encouraged and rewarded.
- Psychological Safety for calm collaboration – Leaders are used to success and accolades. In recent times, surprising numbers of them are not able to tolerate discomfort or maintain self-control when leading multiple businesses with unpredictable outcomes. All converge to the leader with high levels of expectation. The leaders in this scenario can help oneself and his immediate pipeline employees by transparently sharing stories amid uncertainties, both success and failures. The leader should then solicit responses as to how they could have handled the situation fostering direct and genuine feedback, thus creating psychologically safe space. The rising start will then soon realise their leader’s anxiety and concerns. The element of judgement move out automatically out of the equation and will encourage a sense of ‘calm collaboration’ in the team to tackle uncertainties.
- Vulnerability mindset down the pipeline – A CEO for a million-dollar hedge fund on the planet faced a dilemma. How could she motivate talented headstrong people to talk about their anxiety and insecurities? For obvious reasons, she did not want her top performers to latch huge investment risks and express shortcomings during the presentations of big clients or before making a huge investment. That was an unaccepted risk. She took an interesting path by conducting one -on -one coaching session with high potential talents and shared her own anxieties and fears – like fears of being a first women CEO of a million-dollar firm, fear of rejection, fear of underperformance, fear of making bad decisions and so on. These sessions drew people closer to her and created space where the employees felt safe to express their anxieties. She made the rising stars partners to firm performance, both and bad.
- Act on Vulnerability – There is a fundamental leadership paradox in today’s uncertain world. On the one hand, corporate executives are rewarded for better planning and execution capabilities. On the other hand, executives recognise that the world is becoming increasingly unpredictable. What seems a good bet today may suddenly seem foolish once the world changes. Making less accurate predictions cause anxiety and sometimes paralysis, especially with rising leaders as they do not want to damage their reputation by making a risky move; especially if they are the pipeline candidate for succession. Therefore, to minimise this risk the table below is a ready reckoner which provides leaders to choose appropriate frameworks and tools to adapt to actionable vulnerability adoption practices.
| Instance | Vulnerability Actions recommendations for leaders | Recommended Frameworks and Tools |
| 1 | Identification and communication of current and potential blind spots in leadership | · JOHARI Window
· Insights Discovery |
| 2 | Fostering ongoing transparency and information sharing | · Mutli–Rater feedback like 360 degree
· GROW Model of coaching |
| 3 | Improving day to day personal and emotion effectiveness in these challenging situation | · Emotional Intelligence
· Reverse mentoring with teams |
| 4 | Improving psychological safety amongst teams | · Sand Rock’s SCARF Model
· Emotional Intelligence |
Conclusion:
The story of how inventor James Dyson went through 5127 ‘prototypes’ and 5126 ‘failures’ to get his massively successful vacuum cleaner ‘right’ is one of the leadership legend stories. Exercising vulnerability, and its rewards, whether those are lessons from failed efforts or life-changing (even world-changing) events is one of the critical traits of the next generation leader and therefore it is time to ‘reset’.
Anjan Bhowmick, Ph.D., is an executive coach and an Organisation Development specialist. He is currently Executive Director – Organisation Development, Asia and Australia Markets for The Reinsurance Group of America Inc, one of world’s leading Life and Health Reinsurance Companies. He is a faculty instructor at the Cornell University for their certificate courses in Human Resource. He is based out of Hong Kong.
