To improve as a leader, try being open and vulnerable

 To improve as a leader, try being open and vulnerable

In the midst of difficulty, sensitivity may serve as a source of resilience and provide your team an indestructible quality that enables everyone to work joyfully and reach their greatest potential in the face of hardship.

Vulnerability is not a weakness for SME leaders or any other kind of company leader; rather, it may foster resilience and teamwork.

"Never lose your bravery. Keep your vulnerability hidden. Avoid crying in public. This is advise for young individuals, particularly those who identify as masculine. This inhibits vulnerability, which is a crucial component of leadership. This is defined as having the capacity to accept assistance, own up to errors, and recognize its value. Being vulnerable is a crucial leadership trait.

Most of the time, vulnerability is used as a noun to refer to anything that is vulnerable or susceptible to damage or assault. "He has been isolated because of his susceptibility to infection," is an example of how such phrase is used.

On the other hand, the word's other connotation matters to a leader of a small and medium-sized enterprise. It represents a readiness to risk having one's feelings hurt by being open about one's feelings and to let others see or know one's weaknesses. Giving an example would be: In order to keep the trust in a relationship or partnership, it is essential to remain vulnerable.

It is not a weakness to be insecure. It is the source of all feelings and experiences. We avoid or shut off from feeling our emotions when we keep ourselves from being open to getting hurt. This is not to be confused with the crocodile tears that certain politicians have cried. We also lose out on love, belonging, warmth, and understanding when we try to conceal our pain, grief, loss of face, and shame. These are some of the phrases that are being used more often these days to describe inclusive cultures that provide crucial psychological safety. Remain unaffected by the political situation that surrounds you.

What makes vulnerability crucial? It's critical that SME sector executives comprehend this idea. We need a core that can endure because of our multigenerational workforce and ever-changing external environment. When someone accepts their own foolishness or ignorance, it allows others to develop into their own whole person, replete with all of the beauty and distinctive qualities that make each individual special.

This facet of leadership has been extensively studied. Numerous TED speeches have been made on this subject, with Dr. Brené Brown's lecture titled "The Power of Vulnerability" being very famous and viral. According to research by Brown and other academics, fostering psychological safety via rewarding vulnerability serves as the foundation for a positive and productive culture. Does this imply that you accept faults and blunders as rewards? Sort of, yeah. You permit mistakes and consideration. The most audacious proposal that was abandoned receives the Penguin Prize in a prominent university course. As for the winners, well, there are none.

How do you tell when you're ready to show vulnerability? The vulnerability has the following aspects:

Authenticity: Express your true feelings without tempering them for effect, approval, or other purposes. It takes vulnerability to share your sentiments, whether they be ones of sorrow, optimism, trepidation, or love.

Trust: Having faith that others will support you and not take advantage of you, and that you are strong enough to be vulnerable with them.

Goal: Being open to vulnerability is not a ruse. Occasionally, someone may act uneasy to control a group of people or an audience. These are not long-term solutions.

Being vulnerable prevents you from worrying about what other people may think. aids in relieving anxiety. You have to acknowledge the existence of many facets of yourself before you can communicate them. In other words, you have to first accept and value those aspects of who you are. A person who is at ease with themselves is also more receptive to novel experiences. And you won't be terrified of new experiences as you start to feel more at ease being genuine.

A study by DDI World called the Global Leadership Forecast found that 24% of senior leaders admit to being vulnerable with others in the workplace. Furthermore, 48% of respondents believe they accept their own inadequacies and failings. His immediate reports, however, provide a different account. Of the executives who report to senior leaders, just 13% believe that those leaders are prepared to show vulnerability, and 26% believe that those leaders really own up to their mistakes. There may be a few explanations for this:

Fear of learning the truth: demonstrating their lack of knowledge compared to what they claimed to know; this is referred to as impostor syndrome.

Accepting defeat might hinder their professional development. Why put someone on the defensive in a firefight by owning up to their mistake?

Daniel Coyle describes shared risk habits as reciprocal risk behaviors that foster cooperative trust in his book The Culture Code. We may communicate our great ideas without worrying about being judged when we share our vulnerabilities.

Based on all the vulnerability-related factors, it seems that vulnerability increases with trust. In actuality, the reverse is true. Members of a group may establish enduring trust when they are comfortable being vulnerable. Adversity may turn vulnerability into a source of resilience for your team, enabling individuals to work joyfully and reach their greatest potential in the face of difficulty.