“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
Brené Brown
If you haven’t seen Brené Brown’s TEDxHouston talk on the power of vulnerability, it is a well-spent 15 minutes. It is one of the most watched TED Talks ever. Brown shares her own journey from shame to vulnerability and the positive impact that it has had on her life. What was the essential element for her to get from shame to vulnerability, from negative to positive? She did her own work. She went inward and deconstructed the software that prevented her from embracing vulnerability.
Vulnerability is an essential element of leadership through self-differentiation. When you say, “This is what I believe. This is where I think we should go,” you are putting yourself out there and becoming vulnerable. You are opening yourself up to attack and criticism. If you do this without staying connected emotionally (narcissism), you are succumbing to the temptation to be invulnerable. Yes, you are self-defining, but you are afraid to engage emotionally, lest you be attacked.
Leadership through self-differentiation is not self-defining, then putting up emotional armor so that you won’t be hurt by the inevitable attacks. It is self-defining and engaging emotionally, DESPITE the fact that you know you will be attacked. The key to managing anxiety is knowing your own inner workings well enough to not let the attacks bring you down. It is difficult work.
In her book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Brown puts it this way: “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” She goes directly at the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness, contending that it’s the opposite. Friedman argues that leaders not only need to learn to embrace vulnerability, they need to learn to love it. This indeed takes courage. Friedman and Brown are on the same page, as Brown writes in Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live :
“Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.”
To be an effective leader, you need to not only learn to choose purpose and connection over fear and disconnection, but you also need to learn to love it, to embrace it.
Author Seth Godin writes in his blog post “Out on a limb,” that when you are doing important work, you will say to yourself, “This might not work.” He writes: “At some level, ‘this might not work’ is at the heart of all important projects, of everything new and worth doing. And it can paralyze us into inaction…” In this case, he is referring to projects, but this also applies to leadership. It is the essence of choosing adventure over safety. To be a leader implies that you are going somewhere. This, by definition, involves change. And change is scary. What I want you to do is to think of adventure and vulnerability as synonymous. Then learn to embrace them. To love the feeling of putting yourself out there. Why? Because it’s the only way to lead positive change. Further, if you can withstand the inevitable sabotage, people will find this kind of vulnerability attractive.
At the heart of managing anxiety in this way is focusing on self-definition and connection without worrying about what people think. This is hard because vulnerability leaves you exposed. You feel open to attacks that can wound you as a person and as a leader. And, understanding sabotage, you know the attacks are likely. Managing self means that you know the attacks are coming, but, because you know who you are and what you believe, they won’t really wound you. They may not feel good, but your sense of self is stronger than the attacks. Most importantly, your energy goes into managing who you are, not trying to change the minds of others.
Godin puts it this way:
“Of course, trying to control what other people think is a trap. At the same time that we can be thrilled by the possibility of flying without a net and of blazing a new trail, we have to avoid the temptation to become the audience, to will them into following us. Not only is it exhausting, it’s counterproductive. Sales (of concepts, of services, of goods) don’t get made because you’ve spent a sleepless night working on your telekinesis. They happen because you’ve made something worth buying, because you’ve outlined something worth believing in.
‘This might not work’ is either a curse, something that you labor under, or it’s a blessing, a chance to fly and do work you never thought possible.”
Godin is talking about the sale of one of his book projects. But the same principle applies to leadership, which is, as he writes, the “sale of a concept.” He is illustrating a key principle of leadership through differentiation. This makes you vulnerable. You put yourself out there with what you believe, and you think to yourself, “This might not work.” That’s scary, and you want to do everything possible to make it work. But trying to change other peoples’ minds is counterproductive and exhausting. You can only manage yourself.
What impact could you make on the world if asked God to give you the courage to be vulnerable?
This post was adapted from my book Anxious Church, Anxious People: How to Lead Change in an Age of Anxiety.
