“BTW your piece on the crying phony was way too kind,” my business owner pal Tom texted me about my post a couple weeks back about “the crying CEO.”
My headline was, “With leaders like this, we don’t need babies.” I thought that was tough enough!
Reading a follow-up on the piece on CEOs and vulnerability in The New York Times (thanks for the steer, Dain Dunston), it hit me, what has always bugged me about this “trend” toward CEOs being “vulnerable.” And how we’re always hearing that “vulnerability is a sign of strength.”
Vulnerability is not a “sign” of strength. It is, instead, a privilege of strength.
To wit: If the people I work with have come to see that I will persevere through the hardest things that happen to me and our organization—then they will allow me to be “vulnerable,” sharing my feelings and even doubts with them. In fact, they will often appreciate that.
Yes, it’s OK not to be OK—just as long as people trust that you’re going to be OK in the end. And that trust must be earned over time. Over a long time.
It is a great advantage to be able to show max humanity, as that bonds people more closely with you, and allows them to bond more closely with one another.
But “vulnerability” does not make you strong—in your colleagues’ eyes or in reality. Being strong allows you to be vulnerable.
It’s a subtle difference … unless you don’t know it, in which case it’s the difference between being an authentic leader and a “crying phony.”
I’m going to challenge your definition of vulnerability, David. I like the definition offered by social scientist Brené Brown: “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” That doesn’t have to look like a crying CEO. It doesn’t have to involve tears or deep emotional revelations at all. For a leader to be vulnerable simply means being real and transparent with the people they lead instead of always having to appear buttoned up and perfect. It could mean simply sharing a story about a time they failed at something and what they learned about it. Or how they feel about taking a risk — risk-taking pretty much universally scares the bejesus out of most folks, but how many CEOs admit that? It’s modeling behavior that I think smart CEOs would want to see in their employees — transparency, humanity, admitting when you fall short, being open to learning from mistakes. That kind of thing. “The crying CEO” was trying to fake actual vulnerability, which of course failed miserably.
Robert,
I like Brene Brown quite a bit and believe she offers a lot of insight to the value vulnerability brings. That being said, I think David also saying that the leader needs to be credible and trusted for vulnerability to enhance a leader’s effectiveness. Just like you pointed out, fake vulnerability kills credibility.
I like the definition offered by the dictionary: “susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.” People who give TED Talks don’t get to redefine words. As I’ve said, I’m all for leaders being real and transparent with people. I dig humanity and truth-telling. And generally, I don’t feel particularly “vulnerable,” when I do those things, myself. Does that mean I’m not doing it enough? This is mostly semantics, I realize. I don’t think you and I have different things we want in our leaders. I just think lionizing “vulnerability” can lead us away from the confident humanity we are looking for in our leaders, and toward “the crying CEO,” who began, after all, by bragging that “this is the most vulnerable thing I’ll ever share …”
I’m more intrigued with the fact that you made this comment 2 hours from now, than any substantial content it contains.
So we’re going to let a dictionary restrict us from reconsidering and updating something as dynamic as language when we’re presented with new contexts and events? I don’t think this particular writer intends to “redefine” words so much as explore their real meaning in today’s world and clarify what they could mean in a new context. So yeah, you could stick strictly to vulnerability being “susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm” and miss out on what it really means to workplace cultures and employee expectations that are rapidly changing. I realize we’re in violent agreement here, when it comes right down to it, but come on — let’s play with the word “vulnerability” and see where it leads us, especially those of us who write for and work with CEOs and other leaders, crying or not.
Oh… and I’ll call Fiona “kiddo” all the time without realizing it, so I’ve begun trying to ween myself off of it.
I think heroin would be easier.
It doesn’t grate on me to hear someone call a kid, “kiddo,” to the kid: “Nice game, kiddo.” It’s the third-person that bugs me: “The hubby and I are taking the kiddos camping this weekend!”