Yes, Strong Leaders Can Be Vulnerable

For some reason, the issue of vulnerability is on my mind today.  Not sure why.  And not sure it really matters.  I’m just aware that I’ve been contemplating vulnerability for a bit today, wondering what it means, and what role it has in the realm of effective leadership.

You see, one of the things I witness fairly regularly in my work (given that I work with women leaders) is a trend towards “being strong” — or at least acting strong — in the face of whatever comes your way.  There seems to be an idea floating around that effective leaders are strong.  Period.  And for the most part, I can totally buy into this idea.  Effective leaders ARE strong.  That being said, I don’t believe that this strength needs to come at the expense of vulnerability.

When I think of effective leaders, leaders who get the job done, who command respect and draw people into their cause, there’s definitely a confidence and conviction that can be interpreted as strength.  I do believe, however, that these same strong leaders — the effective ones — also know how to allow their vulnerability to come through.  Vulnerability takes the form of admitting to mistakes, acknowledging that you don’t have all the answers, being willing to rely on your team, surrounding yourself with people who have capabilities which you don’t.  And sometimes, vulnerability means allowing your emotions to be visible to the outside world, including sadness and fear.

Why do I feel the need to write about this today?  Because I think the notion that vulnerability is contrary to effective leadership is false.  Moreover, I think this mistaken notion sets otherwise effective and powerful leaders up for failure.  Not just one-time, oops-I-made-a-mistake failure, but gone-for-all-time failure — the kind of failure whereby leaders lose followers and therefore lose their capacity to lead.  My sense is that until and unless an otherwise effective leader is willing to be vulnerable — to let his or her supposed “weakness” come through from time to time, people will actually find other leaders.

While having a strong, heroic, invincible leader works for a time, at some point people want to see your humanity.  In other words, effective leaders have got to be willing to let their emotions come forward, their mistakes be made known, so that they can then be seen to rise above that.

Bottom-line:  to be a truly effective leader, you’ve got to be a whole human package.  Strength is good.  Vulnerability is good.  And both together is great.  Vulnerable strength, and strong vulnerability — I think these are at least two of the characteristics of effective leaders.

Allowing the Emotions to Flow

The human condition is characterized by a spectrum of emotions.  Everything from anger and sadness to joy and exhilaration can be experienced by one and all, regardless of age, gender or ethnicity.  When it comes right down to it, your ability to feel all of these emotions is what distinguishes you from other living creatures.

This ability, however, is often seen as a bit of a curse.  While humans can, in fact, experience any and all of these emotions, the tendency is to only allow a few of these to be okay.  Generally speaking, people are more inclined to allow feelings such as joy, excitement, happiness and love, while trying to avoid or stifle emotions such as sadness, fear and anger.  Why is that?

Well, one reason is obvious…the feelings that arise with sadness, fear and anger are less pleasurable than feelings of happiness, joy and love.  Given the choice most people would naturally lean towards the joyful end of the emotions-continuum than the sadness end.  The challenge, however, when you only allow one end of the spectrum is that you actually start to deaden yourself to life as a whole.  There’s a way in which, denying the feeling of any one emotion lessens your ability to truly feel other emotions.

To paraphrase Deepak Chopra, life is an experience in contrasts.  If you truly want to feel happiness — and appreciate it — then you’ve got to be willing to feel sadness — and appreciate it.  Now admittedly, trying to appreciate sadness or anger or fear can be challenging.  Sometimes, when feelings such as these get overwhelming, it can be difficult to determine what to do with the emotion.  You need to take care not to let it cloud your judgment and move you to make harmful choices.  That being said, when you can allow yourself to simply be with the sadness, to feel the anger or fear, more often than not, it will dissipate and naturally give way to more pleasant feelings.  In other words, allowing the emotions to flow — whatever those emotions are — can actually move you to genuine happiness, joy and excitement quicker than trying to stifle them ever will.

The bottom-line is this:  despite our social conditioning to deny certain emotions in favour of other ones, it actually serves our experience best when we can embrace it all.  There actually is room for it all.  And all emotions serve, when you allow them to flow and be without judgment.