In this podcast episode, Jacob Morgan, a bestselling author, delves into the crucial distinction between merely being a leader who exhibits vulnerability and actively leading with vulnerability. He emphasizes the need for leaders to strike a balance between establishing vulnerability and taking decisive action to address challenges. Read on to gain insights into how embracing vulnerability as a leader can stimulate innovation, build trust, enhance productivity, and boost engagement within your organization.
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GUEST AT A GLANCE
Jacob Morgan is the best-selling author of five books, including his latest release, Leading With Vulnerability. His mission is to cultivate exceptional leaders, engaged employees, and future-ready organizations, earning endorsements from CEOs of renowned companies such as Mastercard, Best Buy, Unilever, The Ritz Carlton, Nestle, Cisco, and Audi, among others.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
VULNERABILITY AND VISION
There’s a difference between a leader being vulnerable and leading with vulnerability. Take Hollis Harris, the former CEO of Continental Airlines, for example. In August of 1991, the company was struggling. According to guest Jacob Morgan, Harris sent out a memo to the entire Continental Airlines workforce saying that “the best thing that they could do is to pray for the future of the business.” Of course, Harris showed great vulnerability by openly admitting the company’s struggles, but this vulnerability lacked effective leadership and not only resulted in pandemonium among the workforce but also Harris’ termination only a day after the memo was sent.
The story of Hollis Harris stands in stark contrast with the approach of CEOs like Fleetwood Grobbler, who, while also acknowledging a trying time for his company, shared his vision for the company’s future and rallied employees to work towards that vision. According to Jacob Morgan, Grobbler didn’t know the “exact steps” he needed to take to get out of this, but he had a vision of where he wanted to go. Grobbler inspired his people instead of merely being vulnerable with them: “And if you follow me on this journey, then I think that we can rebuild trust in our customers and in our employees.” This highlights the “crucial distinction” between merely being vulnerable as a leader and effectively leading with vulnerability.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Tapping into Vulnerability
“I remember that in my last book, The Future Leader, I interviewed 140 CEOs for that. And I would constantly hear the themes of vulnerability brought up, and the CEOs would say, ‘We understand the power of vulnerability. We understand why it’s valuable, but we also are not practicing it inside of our companies.’ And they would say it was because they didn’t know how to apply and how to tap into vulnerability inside of their organizations specifically as a leader. And so I set out with a very basic and simple question to propel me in the direction of writing the book. And that was, ‘Is vulnerability for leaders the same as it is for everybody else?’”
Lost in Translation?
“The way that we think about vulnerability is you talk about your emotions, you talk about feelings or mistakes, you talk about challenges or struggles. And it’s true that, in your personal life, if you’re talking with friends or family members, that could add a lot of value and create a lot of connection. It can help solve a lot of problems. But if we were to do that inside of an organization where we have a very different dynamic, where you are responsible potentially for people, where you’re responsible for dollars and cents, where you’re actually supposed to be delivering things and accomplishing tasks… Is it really just that simple?”
It’s Not the Same
“What if you’re a leader? I’m responsible for the lives of other people. I’m responsible for the fiscal and financial responsibility of a business or a team or a function. Can I really, in that position, just show up to work and say, ‘Hey, these are my struggles. These are my problems. These are my challenges.’? And the answer to that is no. Vulnerability for leaders is not the same as it is for everybody else.”
What Employees Want
“And these are two seemingly opposing perspectives, right? On the one hand, you want me to talk about my flaws, my weaknesses, my vulnerabilities. But on the other hand, you want me to be strong and confident and competent and this visionary person that you can follow into battle, so to speak. So how do you make sense of those two seemingly opposing perspectives? Which one am I? Am I the competent strong leader, or am I the one who’s willing to be vulnerable and talk about my emotions and feelings? And this was a very hard thing for a lot of CEOs to comprehend and to reconcile.”
Taking Action
“Leading with vulnerability combines leadership with vulnerability… competence with connection. So, what that means is, especially if you’re in a leadership role, it’s not just enough to talk about the mistakes, the failures, the challenges, the struggles. You have to demonstrate the leadership piece. What are you doing to solve the problem? What are you doing to move things forward? What are you doing to close that gap? What are you doing to learn and grow and become better?”
Who Do You Want to Be?
“The world in which we live and work has changed. And there used to be a time when the command-and-control mentality, being the celebrity CEO, not showing emotions was beneficial for you because that’s the environment in which we lived. In fact, Fortune used to publish a list of America’s toughest bosses and it was a badge of honor […].
It was accepted. It made sense. But over the past few years, especially even post-pandemic, our world changed, our environment changed. […] You have to ask yourself, are you going to be the type of leader who’s going to do the old way of leading and just hope that nobody notices, or are you going to be the type of leader who adapts, reflecting the environment that we’re in? So from a selfish perspective, this is important for you as a leader just for your own success, for your own growth, for your own ability to lead, for your own career.”
A Business Case for Leading with Vulnerability
“Based on the survey data that we’d looked at, employees who have managers who regularly display vulnerability when appropriate are almost twice as likely to innovate and develop solutions to new problems. They’re almost three times as likely to lead with vulnerability themselves. They’re more than five times as likely to trust their managers. When we asked these 14,000 employees a question around effective and high-performing leaders, what we found is that inside organizations where leaders always lead with vulnerability when appropriate, those leaders are viewed as far more high-quality leaders versus those who are not leading with vulnerability. […] And the numbers keep going, right? It’s improved productivity. It’s improved engagement. It’s across the board.”
LEARN MORE
Head over to leadwithvulnerability.com, order your copy of Jacob Morgan’s new book now, and get access to some free bonus resources.