Strength in Vulnerability

It may seem like an attitude borrowed from an old war movie, but many leaders still believe they should demonstrate stoicism and fortitude to their reports, especially when they are feeling just the opposite: stressed, vulnerable, and plagued with doubt. The idea is that bluffing confidence will reassure employees and sustain morale.

Let me begin by saying that your employees can usually detect false fronts even if they can’t exactly pinpoint what’s going on. I know this from having spent decades surveying thousands of workers on their organizations’ leadership. And you know it too—after all, you hired your teams for their intelligence and perceptiveness!

More importantly, admitting vulnerability does not risk demoralizing the culture. Far from it: it reassures people that everyone, including supervisors and members of the C-suite, experiences stress and moments of doubt. By being transparent about your own experience, you can find commonality and potentially build a deeper bond with reports who might feel isolated in their struggles.

Productive Empathy

The work world today is uncertain and unstable, which makes it all the more critical that we drop the false front. Without introducing additional, specific concerns about their work or the organization, leaders can simply recognize stress and engage with their workers more holistically in what I like to call “productive empathy.” First, admit that the pressures of work can generally be hard, really hard, and then make time to share personal strategies that can mitigate the intensity of those pressures.

These personal strategies do not have to be complex in order to be effective. In fact, in my coaching practice, I find that leaders often have excellent intuitive techniques that sustain them through difficult times, but they are so deceptively simple that people haven’t operationalized what they’re doing—or assume everyone must already be aware of them. As a result, leaders don’t share them.

Neutralizing Negative Self-Talk

In my coaching, I sometimes like to break the ice by offering one of my own relatively simple strategies that has actually been incredibly helpful for reducing feelings of inadequacy.

We tend to hear negative self-talk as assertive, declarative sentences, which gives it a veneer of truth or inevitability that it doesn’t deserve: “I’ll never get this done. I’m not good enough,” etc. Human beings are not evolutionarily wired to be comfortable in periods of uncertainty, so even a self-destructive voice of authority can be perversely comforting, especially one that—only temporarily—relieves us of the responsibilities we have. How can we counteract this temptation?

When I coach someone, I attempt to neutralize negative self-talk by asking them what data exists to support their frame of mind. Upon reflection, the answer is usually “none,” or at least so little that it could never support the exaggerated, unambiguous declarations in our minds that often defeat us. Unlike a demoralizing voice in your head, data doesn’t have a tone, but it commands authority through its status as an unimpeachable fact.

Successful leaders often have a gift for finding truth through data and trusting that over the emotional distractions of a workplace. Without thinking too much about it, they turn this gift toward the misleading emotional voices in their own heads. This is an unconscious ability too often taken for granted that leaders can recognize more openly and share with overwhelmed coworkers up and down the hierarchy.

Don’t Take Your Personal Experience and Wisdom for Granted

Now, is it a simple strategy? Deceptively so. Is it effective? Absolutely. By sharing your own battle-tested techniques, you can connect more meaningfully with your team members, reveal a real person beyond your title, and show you care. Leveraging strength through vulnerability and openness carries weight with the  people who rely on your leadership. It’s far more effective than remaining aloof and modeling a false stoicism that no one can sustainably emulate.

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