Thousand Reflections: How can vulnerability and leadership sit in a tree?
Issue #10
About Thousand Reflections: Thousand Network is full of people from all walks of life and background. Here, we try to tap into this collective wisdom by offering a prompt every week and sourcing short responses from the members.
This week’s prompt:
Leadership was born out of authenticity. It was the ones who risked going in front of the group and be exposed to the dangers of prehistoric life that earned the respect of their peers. Because such exposure meant every action and thought was seen or perceived. And if you dared not to be authentic you would soon lose the trust you were granted.
Authenticity is mostly derived from vulnerability. Because being genuine is about being open. Not necessarily to attacks although that’s an unavoidable collateral. But because openness is the best way to develop relationships we can rely on.
Unfortunately, most of the leaders today are not leading because they’ve protected their people, but because they were able to control the access to command. And this has incentivized a closed leadership style in which we all lose because we can never know who our leaders truly are.
So, how might we promote a better attitude towards vulnerability that can change the status quo and bring back more authentic leadership styles? And how do you show vulnerability and authenticity in your life and work?
What does it mean to know your leader? Leadership style has changed and I’ll forever remember a plaque I received from the Mowgli Foundation, through which I was mentored for a year — “To Serve is to Lead” — being in service of a purpose is to lead. A leader is one that manifests this service.
Authenticity is the ability to reflect one’s core values with integrity…hmmm…or to be real with a dash of humility…
This a very timely question which corresponds to the emergence of new type of organization that are opening all over the world.
Being open, transparent and remaining in a vulnerable state of mind could be great leadership traits. But it seems in modern days we all are phonies and like to pretend someone else than what we are.
And this kind of thing is loved by the most people in the world too, so on the global level our top tier leadership does it as well. Its very tough to imagine dramatic changes in the near future, but we can practice these traits of vulnerability on the small community level, social gatherings, initiatives.
I am positive change will happen, and will happen from bottom level up, such as small community leaders and social leaders who will establish this as a pre-requirement. In the next generation of organizations, which I call “Organization 2.0”, vulnerability would be a prerequisite for leadership, being open and transparent and focusing on collaborative initiatives.
Offices will not be offices, they will be just another home and it will have subsequent effects in other types of organizations too, such as nations and world bodies.
Culture is expressed in every small expression, attitude — look around us. We can not tackle vulnerability alone as it is a part of a larger way of being. People who are afraid of uncertainty and ambiguity will also be intimidated by vulnerability. Shifting the common control & management culture towards distributed, emancipated, chaos-embracing style would have a positive effect on showing vulnerability openly.
If we can imagine everyone to be our mother, our daughter, human like us… we will embrace vulnerability automatically as a transmitter pf compassion and love.
There are a thousand ways to reflect on this question. The responses above me have summed up a variety of ways, so I’ll try and take it in a different direction…
As an artist and a dancer, I was taught to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable onstage is to connect with the audience, and when you can do that, the results are stunning. The best dancers, actors, and performers are such because they have the ability to create something genuine, of taking down their walls in front of people.
One time in an acting class, my teacher had one of the students simply stand onstage and feel the weight of the situation their character was in. Standing in front of people and not “doing,” just “being,” is one of the most vulnerable things you can do. And yet, it was a magical moment.
These days, the arts have been pushed to a sub-section of society. They are hardly spoken about or dealt with on the global stage, let alone in politics. But perhaps if they were a larger part of the conversation, and leaders learned the power of vulnerability in authentic performing, we might be looking at a completely different world.
Our definition of leadership is changing. In the past, it was about one person in the front. Now it seems like it’s more about bringing others with us for the journey. I remember when I took my last job, it was less about my day to day responsibilities, and more about the opportunity to be some version of my authentic self. There is something to be said about this desire. I was coming to a time in my life and career where I was tired of having to master my “poker face.” These days, likely inspired by Brene Brown’s “Daring Greatly” on vulnerability, courage, and shame resilience, I hope to be the most authentic version of myself that is consistent. I think there’s power in that. By leading by example, I hope to create spaces where the people around me feel comfortable being themselves.
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