October 07, 2020

1 Leadership Thought

Every leader wants to retain their credibility, which tends to lead to the impulse to micromanage others and control all decisions...because the results reflect on their leadership. Here’s the irony: when leaders treat their position like an award where others should cater to their needs instead of a duty to serve their team, they tend to lose credibility with their teammates.

One of the most important things you can do to remedy this is to lead with vulnerability. To clarify, vulnerability is not:

  • Transparency — transparency is a type of contrived vulnerability that relies on manipulation to get what it wants.

  • Playing a victim — you only become less trustworthy and more dramatic when you play the victim

  • Trying to get pity points — getting pity points is centered around you…true vulnerability is centered around helping a team make progress

What vulnerability really is:

  • Owning weaknesses — enables collaboration

  • Being truthful — so that the team can make the best decision

  • Consistency in character — your team develops high trust that you are who you say you are

So how does one lead with vulnerability? “The key to vulnerability is self-awareness, which is the ability to self-regulate yourself in real-time.” (Share this on Twitter) When you can see the effect you are having on other people in real-time, you can adjust your words and actions to clearly communicate in a way that builds momentum towards your team’s goals.

Here are three ways you can do that:

  • Ask for feedback from your team and receive it

  • Find a mentor who can help you continue to grow

  • Embrace your own strengths and limits

As you grow in self-awareness, you become more able to pick and choose the right spots for vulnerability in your leadership, which only builds your credibility and trust with your team. 

1 Resource

Ginka Toegel and Jean-Louis Barsoux on self-awareness:

"Self-awareness is the most important capability for leaders to develop. Executives need to know where their natural inclinations lie in order to boost them or compensate for them...Throughout your career, you’re going to hear lots of feedback from peers and employees and bosses. If you hear a certain piece of feedback consistently and you don’t agree with it, it doesn’t matter what you think. Truth is, you’re being perceived that way."

Source: Self-Awareness: A Key to Better Leadership

1 Question

What do you want to be said about you at your 60th birthday? Are you living in a way where that will actually happen?