The Secret to Getting Vulnerability Right in Leadership

Transcript

Beth Almes:                     

Hi leaders, and welcome back to the Leadership 480 Podcast. I'm your host, Beth Almes, and today I'm going to be a little bit vulnerable with you all because I'm talking about a subject that quite frankly feels a little uncomfortable to me, which is vulnerability itself, especially when it comes to leadership. If any of you are like me, and hopefully maybe you're not, but you're a leader who might appreciate when other people are vulnerable with you, when they're candid about what's going on with them, when they tell you what's going wrong in their life, what's holding them back, because then you can help them take the actions to fix it.

And that's one of the reasons you probably became a leader in the first place. You like helping people do that. But in that position of strength and being the steady one who leads the team, it can feel very uncomfortable for you to be vulnerable, and that's where it gets really sticky and uncomfortable at times. So here to make me uncomfortable today is Jacob Morgan. He's also going to try to change my mind a little bit about vulnerability and the value it has for leaders.

So Jacob has graciously agreed to come back to the Leadership 480 Podcast. He is a bestselling author, a professionally trained futurist, and sought-after keynote speaker on leadership. He's also the host of an award-winning podcast called Leading the Future of Work and a top social influencer. And the big one that we're talking about today is Jacob's new book called Leading with Vulnerability. So Jacob, welcome back to the Leadership 480 Podcast.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Thank you for having me. And I got to mention one thing. We actually changed the name of the podcast to Great Leadership instead of Leading the Future of Work.

Beth Almes:                     

Oh, nice. Okay, so Great Leadership. So you all can follow that podcast as well if you enjoy the topic of leadership. So I'm very curious, what got you interested in studying vulnerability, both in life and in the context of leadership?

Jacob Morgan:                 

A few different things. I'd say the seed professionally was planted a couple of years ago when I was working on my previous book, the Future Leader, which I believe I came on the show to talk about as well.

Beth Almes:                     

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jacob Morgan:                 

And in that book, I interviewed 140 CEOs. I was asking them about mindsets and skill sets for current and aspiring leaders, and I was trying to look out over the next five to 10 years what would be important for leaders. And the theme of vulnerability came up a lot. The theme of emotional intelligence came up a lot. So these themes were planted in my head at the time. But as I started to ask CEOs and leaders about these questions both in the previous book and for the new one, I started to notice that there were a few gaps that were present, which leaders were not able to answer. And because they were unable to answer it, they weren't able to do anything with it.

So the first one was that a lot of leaders were conflicted because they were getting mixed messages from their teams. On the one hand, their employees were saying, "We want you to be strong and visionary and competent, and we want to know that you can get us out of a difficult time, and we want to know that you can grow the business and take care of us." And on the other hand, these leaders were saying, "But my employees also want me to talk about my weaknesses and my challenges and my failures and things in my personal life." And it's sort of like, "Well, which one do you want? Do you want the strong, confident, and competent leader, or do you want the leader who's willing to talk about their challenges and weaknesses and failures?"

A second thing that kept coming up is that while a lot of leaders acknowledged the value of vulnerability in their personal lives as a way to create connection with their friends, their family members, they were telling me that inside of an organization, it's a very different dynamic, which it is, right.

Because inside of a company you have a hierarchy. You have a boss. You have employees. You have customers. You have projects and deadlines. And then, of course. You have the issue of money. So is vulnerability the same in our personal lives as it is at work? Can you just take that concept and bring it into work? And furthermore, what if you're actually a leader where you're responsible for the lives of other people, where you are responsible for the fiscal aspect of a business, is vulnerability for you the same as it is for non-leader?

And the answer to all of those questions is no. Vulnerability at work is not the same as it is at home, and vulnerability for leaders is not the same as it is for non-leader. So being given this information, I thought it would be very interesting to explore leadership at work from a leadership perspective because we're not seeing a lot of it, and I think for good reason. So that's kind of the professional side. The personal side for this came because my family comes from the Republic of Georgia, small country next to Russia, part of the former USSR. And so growing up, while my mom tried to teach emotional vulnerability and openness for me, I grew up as a young boy watching my dad and emulating my dad, who's the exact opposite of vulnerability.

Don't talk about your problems or emotions or feelings. Don't talk about your mistakes or challenges or failures. Nobody caress. Just keep it all in. And that's how I pretty much lived my entire adult working life until a couple of years ago when I had a series of panic attacks, couldn't figure out why I was having these panic attacks. And then, after going to a therapist and getting a couple sessions, it became clear that what was giving me panic attacks was the fact that I had committed to writing a book about vulnerability when I was not a vulnerable person. So writing this book literally gave me a series of panic attacks. So I hope people appreciate the effort that went into this thing.

Beth Almes:                     

So it makes me feel a little bit better because, like I said, I am very bought in around the idea, but it is uncomfortable, especially when you start talking about you're the leader on the team. How do you show vulnerability? So let's talk about what that looks like at work. How do you define vulnerability at work, and how does it differ from the vulnerability you express at home?

Jacob Morgan:                 

Vulnerability, I think a lot of people are familiar with Brené Brown's work, and she talks about vulnerability in the context of risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure. Inside of an organization, when we think about the relationships that we have with other people and how we work with other people, I think simply put, vulnerability is doing or saying something that exposes you to the potential of emotional harm. Again, in the context of relationships with other people. So, for example, that might be we're working on a team together, and I tell you, "Hey, you know what? I've never done this before. This is my first time doing this. I'm a little nervous." That's vulnerable. I'm exposing you to something that you can use to potentially harm me, which you could, right. You could go to our boss, and you could say, "Hey, why did you put Jacob on this team?

He just told me he's never done this before. I think you should move him off and bring somebody else on." So you could use that information to harm me if you wanted to. So that's what vulnerability is. It's again, vulnerability as a standalone is the same as it is in our personal lives and at work. What I advocate for is not being vulnerable at work. It is to lead with vulnerability. Now, that's where we see the difference. There's a difference between being vulnerable and leading with vulnerability. So vulnerability is what we just talked about. It's this concept of exposing the gap. It's telling people where you're lacking. What you're missing. Where you're struggling. You're basically saying, "Hey, here's a gap that I have in some area," and that's it. Leading with vulnerability is exposing the gap but also demonstrating what you're doing to close that gap.

So again, a simple example. Let's say I work for you. You're a leader on my team, and you give me a project. I mess up the project and I come to you and I'm vulnerable. I expose the gap. I tell you, "I'm really sorry. I know you gave me this assignment. I screwed it up." So I'm basically admitting to you, I'm sharing with you where that gap is. Leading with vulnerability, on the other hand, would say, "I'm really sorry I screwed up this project, but here's what I learned from the mistake that I made, and here are three things that I'm going to do in the future to make sure that this mistake doesn't happen again." So not only have I showed the gap with you, but I'm demonstrating what I'm doing to close that gap now and in the future. And that's what we do not do a good job of inside of our organizations.

We're taught to expose the gap, to share the gap, but then we're oftentimes assuming that other people are going to close that gap for us, that everyone else is just going to do things for us. But you have to have that accountability, especially if you are in a leadership role because people look to you for your competence, for your guidance, for your direction. So if you just keep showing up to work every day talking about, "I can't do this. I'm feeling like this. I made a mistake here. I need this." At some point, people are going to start looking at you, and they're going to say, "Maybe you're not the right person for this job."

Beth Almes:                     

Right. So that's a great question. Even exposing those gaps, the part that you're afraid to do because people could, in theory, use it against you, you sort have to have a certain faith in the people around you that they're not. You're saying, "Listen, I'm showing you that. Nope, I don't have all the answers to this, and I'm going to trust that you don't use that against me." How often, as you've interviewed, I mean you've interviewed hundreds of leaders on this, how often does that fall through? It actually is used against you.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Oh, it will, and I can promise you it will, but that's the nature of life, right. I mean, at some point, you will ask for a promotion, and you'll be turned no... turned down. You'll ask for more money. You'll be said that you can't have it. You'll ask somebody out for a date, and that person will tell you no. And at some point, you'll be vulnerable with somebody, and they'll use it against you. It's not about it being used against you or not because, at some point, it will be, and that's the one promise that I can make for you. But it's not going to happen nearly as often as you think.

So it's not going to happen often, but when it does, it's not so much... you have choices with what you can do with that information. One thing that you can do is say, "Well, it was used against me. I'm never going to be vulnerable again." Or you could say, "Well, what did I learn about myself and the situation and the other person so that, in the future, I can take the things that I've learned and apply them?" If you work at a company and you ask for a promotion, and your boss tells you no, are you never going to ask for another promotion again? If you ask somebody out on a date and somebody tells you no, is that it? Are you never going to ask anybody else out ever again? I would hope the answer is no. I mean, of course you will.

Beth Almes:                     

Right. Right.

Jacob Morgan:                 

So same thing with vulnerability, right. I mean, it will get used against you at some point, but then you have a choice of how you respond and how you approach it going forward.

Beth Almes:                     

So knowing that there is real risk involved, what's the business case for doing it anyway?

Jacob Morgan:                 

There's risk again with anything and everything that you do. In the case of leadership, I think the ROI comes down to a few different areas, and I talk about this in the context of the personal value to you and the value that it is to the business. So the value that it is to you, I think, is very clear, and that is that we live and work in a different world. And believe it or not, there used to be a time when it was acceptable to lead in a way that was focused on command and control, where you didn't talk about failures or emotions or weakness, and a leader never apologized. That used to be okay. It was actually taught and encouraged. FORTUNE Magazine used to have a series that they published called America's Toughest Bosses, and it was a badge of honor to be on the cover of that magazine, and it was a badge of honor to work for that kind of a boss.

So this was what we were taught in MBA programs. I've interviewed several CEOs. One of them is Nancy McKinstry. She's the CEO of a large consulting company called Wolters Kluwer, 20,000 employees or so. And she told me that when she was getting her MBA, they were actually teaching her how to lead like Jack Welch. How to be this celebrity CEO. So this was accepted, but what we forget to understand is that the environment around us has suddenly changed. And there's a concept in psychology called mismatch theory, which basically explains that attributes and behaviors and traits that were once beneficial to you become detrimental to you when the environment around you suddenly changes, which is exactly what happened to us. It was starting to change even pre-pandemic, post-pandemic, it's a completely different world.

So the value to you, as a leader, is do you want to adapt and to be able to lead in this new world of work that we're all a part of, or are you going to keep doing things the old way and hope that nobody notices? I think that if you want to have a career in leadership, and if you want to be able to make an impact to create trust and to drive performance lead through change, you are going to have to lead with vulnerability. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to do any of these things. And quite honestly, I don't think you're going to have a career. 

There's also the ROI in terms of the business case. The business case, this is one of the things that we teamed up on together, right when we surveyed the 14,000 employees and we looked at a lot of different areas in terms of the ROI, and we found that organizations where managers and leaders frequently are always display vulnerability when appropriate, those organizations, their leaders are perceived as higher quality.

There is around a three times improvement in employee engagement. These teams are better at managing a remote workforce. They're better at creating more inclusive environments. They're better at driving innovation, almost double there. So there's clear ROI in terms of the business impact and also the value of what it means for you as an individual if you want to lead.

Beth Almes:                     

And the reality is that you're going to have these vulnerabilities either way. And on one side, you're just hiding them and hoping nobody finds them. And on the other, you're actually addressing them, right. You're saying, "Hey, I don't know how to do this, so please help me." Rather than, "Let's just hope nobody knows that I don't know how to do this."

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yeah. And it's not just, "Help me," but it's, "Here's how I'm helping myself."

Beth Almes:                     

Yeah. Right.

Jacob Morgan:

I have a team of people that I work with, and we all make mistakes, right. And whenever somebody on my team makes a mistake, I don't just say, "Oh, it's okay." I say, "What did you learn from the mistake that you made? What are we going to do in the future to make sure that this mistake does not happen again?" So I'm not just interested in the fact that people are pointing out mistakes. I'm not interested in the fact that people are just saying, "I'm sorry." I want to know what they're doing to close the gap, as is any leader in any organization, right.

If you work for any company, there's nothing wrong with making those mistakes, but you can't just spot the problems. Nobody cares about spotting problems. We also care about how you're going to solve those problems that you've spotted. And that's the difference between being vulnerable, where you spot the problem, point out the gap, which again, we do that all the time. But in the work environment, leaders want to know, your peers want to know how you're closing the gap. What are you doing to make sure that you can help solve your own problem, not just rely on everybody else?

Beth Almes:                     

It's really interesting. It reminds me, there was a point in the book, I don't remember who you were interviewing, but they made the analogy that vulnerability on its own was like hydrogen. That it could do great things on its own, but when paired with other things, it's much more effective and you get water and you get other things. And in my head, as soon as I started reading that, I was thinking hydrogen. "Hydrogen, it's like hydrogen on its own." And I thought, "Yeah, it's like the Hindenburg. It's going to blow up all by itself."

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yeah, it's... Brad Jackson, the CEO of Slalom Consulting, and I think they have around 13,000 employees. And yeah, look, I am not saying that vulnerability as a concept is bad, but I think we need to be realistic about what the relationship between an employee and an employer is. You were hired to do a job, and you got that job because you said that you had a certain set of capabilities and talents and skills to do the job that you were hired for, and so the company picked you. Not somebody else. They picked you.

So if that's the relationship and the contract that we have with each other, and then you show up to work basically constantly exposing the gaps around why you can't do something, why you won't do something about things that you don't know, you have to imagine that at some point, your leaders and peers are going to look at you and say, "Hey, we brought you into this role, and you have a huge gap between where you are and where you need to be. Maybe this is not the right fit for you." That's why it's so crucial for you, especially if you're in a leadership role, to demonstrate that you're closing the gap. 

I actually have two stories, if you want, that I can share with you that are in the book. So one of them, this is from the CEO of Continental Airlines. This is the former CEO of Continental Airlines, Hollis Harris. And in the 90s and even in the early 80s, the airline was struggling, and Hollis Harris, in August of 1991, I believe it was, sent out a memo to his entire workforce. And in his memo, he talks about the difficulties that the business is going through, all of the challenges. He doesn't point out that he has any ideas or plans for how to move things forward. And then, he ends the memo by telling his employees, "The best thing that you can do is to pray for the future of the company." Now that's a very vulnerable thing to say, right. Very vulnerable thing to say, but the next day, he was fired.

Beth Almes:                     

Yeah.

Jacob Morgan:                 

And that's because there's no leadership there. I mean, if Hollis Harris was a junior employee in accounting and he showed up to work and said, "I think this company is going down. We should all pray for the future of the company." Somebody would look at him and say, "Sounds like you're having a bad day. Why don't we go out for lunch? Why don't you take some of the day off, and let's chat about it."

Beth Almes:                     

Yeah.

Jacob Morgan:                 

When you're in a leadership role, and you do this, you cause chaos. Now, contrast this to a story that I tell in the book about Fleetwood Grobler. He's the CEO of a company called Sasol, South African energy company around 30,000 employees. He took over CEO before the pandemic when the company was already $13 billion in debt. Then, the pandemic happened, the company almost went out of business. The banks were about to repossess it. He also had to give an all-hands meeting to his workforce. His message was very different. He started off with the vulnerability. "I acknowledge that we're going through a tough time. The business is going downhill, difficult economic and geopolitical issues that we're facing. I don't have an exact series of steps that we can take to get out of this." Then he added the leadership. "But I have a vision and an idea of where, I think, we can go. I know we have a talented group of employees here.

I know that we can rebuild trust in our employees and in our customers. And if you go with me on this journey and help me figure out what that path is going to look like together, we will be able to turn around and rebuild this business and be successful." And that's exactly what happened. So vulnerability, I think, alone inside of an organization can actually harm you much more than it can help you. However, when you combine vulnerability with leadership, with the competence demonstrating that you're closing that gap, that's when it can be used as a superpower because not only does it create connection with your people, but it also, in the eyes of your people demonstrates that you have that competence, or at least you're trying to get that competence to get better.

And that's really what leadership is all about. I'm good at my job. I'm good at connecting with people. It's not... And again, if you only because some people might be listening to this and saying, "Well, what's wrong if I just do one of those things?" Let's say you're really great at connecting with people. You're really good at the vulnerability stuff, and then somebody comes to you, and they say, "Well, what do you think of so-and-so as a leader?" Well, they'll probably say, "Oh, this person is, we have great chemistry, great connections. I like working for this person. They're just a great human being, but I'm not sure they're the right leader for this role because they haven't demonstrated that they're good at their job. They don't have that level of competence."

Similarly, if you're only good at the competence, the leadership piece, somebody might say, "Well, so-and-so is really amazing at their job. They're bringing in business. They're closing deals. They're growing. They're just really great at their job. But I don't have that connection. I don't feel motivated and engaged and inspired by the work that I'm doing. We don't have that chemistry. It's hard to collaborate. It's hard to see eye to eye on things." In other words, you're going to be perceived as a robot. So if you only focus on leadership, you get the perception of being a robot. If you only focus on vulnerability, you get the perception that you're incompetent. So again, this is why you got to be good at both.

Beth Almes:                     

So when you think about... You kind of mentioned that this looks different at different levels in the organization, right. Certainly different for individual contributors who, to some degree, can bring their vulnerability to work. And as their leader, you address that with them. But you've primarily interviewed people in CEO positions and at the top of the house. How does vulnerability look different as you go through the ranks? I mean, is it very different, as I... if you express it as a frontline manager compared to when you're really in those executive roles?

Jacob Morgan:                 

Well, we actually found a few things, and that is the more senior you become in a company... And this is based on a survey of 14,000 employees that we did together. The more senior you become inside of an organization, the less likely you are to actually display vulnerability and the less like you are... the less likely you are to acknowledge any mistakes or failures that you make. And when I say less likely, I mean it's a gradual decline in terms of seniority level. And then it's a precipitous cliff drop between kind of a mid-level leader and becoming a senior executive. So it is very, very different depending on your seniority level. And again, I was very surprised by this that the seniority level would cause such a dramatic drop-off. So I think the main difference is that we see less of it, not more of it, the more senior you become inside of your company.

Now, in terms of how it's practiced and why it's practiced, and these combination of these two variables, that's pretty consistent across the board. Whether you're an entry-level employee or top executive, I think these things are crucial for you to be able to do and implement. But interestingly, the number one reason why we don't see more of this is because people don't want to be perceived as being weak and incompetent at work. And it's funny that that's the number one reason because the reason is the solution. In other words, if you don't want to be perceived as being incompetent at work, then add the competence, right. This is the big problem that we have. We're only vulnerable, and because we're only vulnerable, we're scared of being perceived as being incompetent.

However, if you're vulnerable and you add the competence, the leadership to your vulnerability, that will change that perception. I mean, if I show up to work every day just talking about the mistakes and failures, yeah, I'm going to be worried that people around me are going to say, "Uh-oh, Jacob shouldn't be in that job." But if I'm showing up to work, and I'm talking about the things that I'm working, working on and how I'm learning and how I'm growing, what I'm learning from the mistakes that I'm making, then that perception of being incompetent is not nearly as prevalent because I'm demonstrating the competence. I'm demonstrating that I'm closing the gap, and we don't do that, hence the fear that we have.

Beth Almes:                     

So, as you've talked with CEOs, do you find that a lot of them are on board with the idea of vulnerability, or was it more common that they were kind of like, "Eh, yes, but..." So what was their perception of it?

Jacob Morgan:                 

Well, I haven't talked to a single CEO, and again, I interviewed more than a hundred of them for this book that didn't acknowledge the value of vulnerability. But also, every single one of these said that vulnerability alone is not the right approach. All of the CEOs that I interviewed... And again, I wanted to interview CEOs because these are ultimately the people who are leading the organizations. They make the difficult decisions. They're responsible for the employees and the dollars and cents of the business. It all comes down to them. So what are they looking for in their teams, in their leaders, in successful leaders that they're bringing on? That's why I wanted to talk to them. And then survey the 14,000 employees who actually work for these leaders.

So yeah, they all acknowledge and, again, understand what vulnerability is, especially in their personal lives. But they also all acknowledge and understand that vulnerability alone in the workplace is not helpful, right. You need to add the leadership piece. They also all acknowledge that vulnerability without intention is not vulnerability. It's group therapy, right. So, in other words, if I'm showing up to work, there needs to be a reason for why I'm sharing or doing something. I'm not just going to show up to work and start talking about my dad. And I did this, and I did that. I'm struggling here. That becomes a therapy session.

Beth Almes:                     

Right.

Jacob Morgan:                 

You need to have intention behind it. So sharing or doing something with the purpose of moving things forward. Am I doing this because I want to create a better relationship with you? Am I doing this because I want to create a culture where employees can speak up and share ideas? Am I doing this because I want to unearth problems that might be arising?

So what is the intention behind sharing or doing whatever it is that you want to share or do? That's one of the frameworks that I have in the book, but it starts with intention. And again, we forget not only about the leadership piece, the competence piece. We forget about asking ourselves, why are we doing this? Why are we sharing this? What's the purpose behind it?

Beth Almes:                     

Yeah, it's such a great way to think about that intention behind it. And one of the things you said that kind of reminded me of one of the stories in the book as well was, you talked about the fear of being perceived as weak, which I think is certainly true for most of us. But one of the stories you told me or you told in the book was about a woman who was kind of up for an executive role, and she gets invited to the CEO's office on a Saturday morning, and she's like, "Listen, I have no childcare. My husband's working."

And she brings her baby into this meeting with the CEO in the stroller is like, "Yeah, listen, this is what my life is." And I listened to that, and she got the job, and everything went really well and all those things down the road. I read that story, and I was like, "Yes, she did show vulnerability, but man, did that come from a place of strength."

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yeah.

Beth Almes:                     

Just an incredible amount of strength. So I'm curious. As you've talked with people about vulnerability, how much do you see that it's really backed by personal strength and confidence?

Jacob Morgan:                 

One of the sections of the book looks at the eight attributes of vulnerable leaders. And the way that you can think about this is if you've ever, or your audience members have ever seen any of those Avengers movies where there's a concept of the infinity stones. And the whole idea is that you bring together these infinity stones, and then when you bring them together, it unlocks this tremendous superpower. And that's what these eight attributes of vulnerable leaders are.

They're kind of these eight things that, when you bring them together, they help unleash this powerful potential that you can have. Confidence is one of them. Competence is another one of them. So you do need to have those things, right because if you're not good at your job, you don't believe in yourself, you don't have that positive self-talk, you don't have the motivation to grow and improve, then you can't really lead with vulnerability effectively. 

So yeah. I mean, the lady that you're talking about is Mindy Grossman. She's the former CEO of WW, AKA Weight Watchers, and I've spoken with her many times. And she absolutely, when you talk to her, has that aura and presence of confidence and vulnerability and motivation and competence. She exudes all of these characteristics and qualities. It doesn't mean you need to be perfect at all of them, but they are very relevant for you. So yes, you are correct in terms of the how you project yourself. How you come across. A lot of that matters for these things.

Beth Almes:                     

So one of the other things you mentioned in the book is vulnerability is a really subjective thing, right. I think you compared it to being judged in gymnastics, where it's all about style and how much the judges reacted to you, rather than something that's much more clear-cut, just flat-out winning a race. So how do you know as a leader if you're being vulnerable enough, and do you think a lot of leaders think they're doing this but aren't really demonstrating it in practice?

Jacob Morgan:                 

So it's hard to say if you're being vulnerable enough, right. It's one of those things because, obviously, what you're comfortable with is not going to be what somebody else is comfortable with. That's why, in the book, I have five superheroes, five types of vulnerable leaders that are different across the board. Being vulnerable doesn't mean that, "Oh, I have to show up to work and share everything about anything with everybody, otherwise, I'm not vulnerable." No, I mean, I don't do that. And a lot of the CEOs don't do that either. It doesn't mean they're not leading with vulnerability. So how do you know if you're being vulnerable enough? I mean, it's your comfort level. It's how you want to come across. It's having conversations with your employees and asking them if they feel like they're connecting with you and they're motivated and engaged and empowered and inspired by you. Yeah, right.

Do they see you as a robot? How do you come across, right? There's a level of self-awareness that's also important there. But it all comes back to one of the things that we mentioned earlier, which is intention, right. Understanding not how vulnerable are you or how invulnerable are you, but what's the intention behind your vulnerability? If you're never vulnerable about anything with anybody, obviously it's going to create an environment where other people won't do that either, and you're basically just going to create a typical, hierarchical, stereotypical, control organization. If that's the environment that you want to create, which I don't know, anybody who does, then sure, never do that stuff. But again, I don't think that's what most leaders want. So it's hard to say, "Are you vulnerable enough?" It's like saying, "Are you authentic enough, right?" It's very, very subjective.

But I think the best thing that you can do is to focus on that element of intention and to also pay attention to the areas where you know vulnerability is going to be present, ask yourself how you can bring leadership. To the areas where you know that you need to bring in leadership, ask yourself, how can I bring in a little bit of vulnerability, right? Because all of those two things, I think, need to be present in the interactions and the engagements that you have. It doesn't mean that if you're incorporating leadership, you all of a sudden need to share this crazy, personal, dramatic story. But if you're talking about maybe guiding the organization in the future and transforming the business and this and that, you could bring in maybe a personal story of how you struggled with this in the past and how you overcame it as a way to connect with the people who are in the audience, right. You got to ask yourself what you can do to create that connection.         

But there's no rubric or criteria, I think, that exists that can help you measure where you're going and where you're not. The framework that I have in the book has five kind of concentric circles.

Beth Almes:                     

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Which look at intention, meaning what you're sharing and why you're sharing it. One level out from that is who you're sharing it with. Another one looks at the tone that you're bringing in. Another one looks at where. Are you in a crowded area? You have a one-on-one conversation, like the environment in which you're sharing it. And lastly, the level of professionalism that you bring into it. And so I think if you walk through those five things when you are thinking of leading with vulnerability, that'll be a pretty good guideline for you.

Beth Almes:                     

One of the things I found interesting as well is when you talk about what vulnerability starts to look like and practice some things, and there are some things that are sort of obvious. You admit a mistake, something you want to do differently. But one thing you mentioned actually a couple of times, and I've seen happen a lot, is a lot of leaders are very vulnerable about asking, but especially... or giving, but especially receiving praise.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yeah.

Beth Almes:                     

And I've seen this happen a ton. They're super, super uncomfortable about it. It's like, "Oh my gosh, do not, under any circumstances, talk about anything good about me." So it sounds like maybe you saw that crop up as a common form of vulnerability as well.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yeah. I talk about 10 vulnerability signs in the book because we need to remember that what I might find vulnerable and what you might find vulnerable are very different. And so there are times and situations where I might feel vulnerable, and you might not have any idea. And there are other times where you might think I'm vulnerable, and I'll say, "No, I'm not." So that's why there are signs, just like when there are signs when you're driving. It doesn't mean that those... that what's happening on the... what the sign depicts is actually happening, right. There are signs, for example, when you're driving through a canyon or through a cliff side of rocks that are falling on top of the car.

It doesn't mean that there are literally rocks falling on top of you, but it's a sign that's basically saying, "Hey, you should just be aware that that might happen in the area." Similarly, the 10 vulnerability signs are just things that you should be paying attention to as kind of cues that vulnerability might be present, and then you can probe and see if that's actually the case. And so, it is important to be aware of what those different vulnerability signs are so that you know what steps you can actually take. And I can't even remember what the original question was that you asked me.

Beth Almes:                     

It was around praise. People being uncomfortable with receiving praise.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Praise. Yes.

Beth Almes:                     

Yeah.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yes. Thank you. Yeah. So one of those signs is praise. And so one of the people that I interviewed is Jay Bray. He's the CEO of a financial company called Mr. Cooper Group, and that's one of the things that he even shared with me, right. He said, "I didn't come from a family where we celebrated wins. I came from a family where even when I had a success, it was, 'Well, why didn't you do better? What can you do better next time? What's next?'" And so, for him, accepting praise and acknowledging praise is very difficult. It's a very big sign of vulnerability.

My dad is like this. I am like this. I'm also not comfortable with people complimenting me, right. Or they say, "Hey, I loved your book, or I like your talk." And I'm like, "Okay, thank you." But those things are really meaningful. But being able to show that those words are impacting you means that you yourself have to open yourself up, and that's vulnerable, and it's uncomfortable, and it's scary, and it's also... Vulnerability is not always about bad things. Why always think it's about a mistake or a failure, but you can be vulnerable during good times too, because you might not want to show it.

Beth Almes:                     

So if someone has been listening to our conversation and says, "Okay, great, I do realize that maybe this is an area where it does give me a lot of discomfort, but I want to start working on this. I think it's going to help me excel in my job." I think, by now, they've probably picked up that you don't start by waltzing into the team and saying, "Here's everything that's wrong with me." But how do you get started if you've self-reflected a little bit and you're like, "Hey, I could maybe try this or do a little bit better." What do you start to do differently?

Jacob Morgan:                 

The simple approach I talk about in the book, as far as where to begin with leading with vulnerability, is climbing the vulnerability mountain. And so the cover of the book is somebody who is peering at this big mountain in front of them, and they're getting ready to go on this journey. And when I say climb the vulnerability mountain, what I mean is you identify what's at base camp for you. What's something easy that you can do tomorrow or the next day or today, and what's the scary thing that's at the top of the mountain for you, the peak?

And once you know what the base camp is and what the peak is, then every day and every week and every month, you slowly take steps to climb that vulnerability mountain. You do things every day so you can take those steps, and you'll probably fall down. And you'll have to backtrack to go back, and you'll probably get beat up and bruised, and things will get used against you. So it's an ongoing journey that you're going to have to go on, but it starts with knowing what you can do now and versus what the scary thing is for you and how, again, you can close that gap.

Beth Almes:                     

So this has been a great conversation. What haven't I asked you that I should? Every author, there's some pieces of their book or something that is like, "Don't leave this conversation or this book without remembering this or talking about it." So what haven't I asked you about that you love about this concept?

Jacob Morgan:                 

Well, one thing that we didn't touch on, which I think is very relevant, is the relationship between vulnerability and competence. And it's a concept in psychology called the Pratfall Effect, which basically states that if you're really good at your job and you're vulnerable, you're going to get a bump in your perception of competence because people look at you, and they say, "Wow, Jacob's really good at his job. Oh, now he's vulnerable. Oh, he's a human being. Oh, now I view him as even better, even greater of a leader."           

So if you're good at your job and you're vulnerable, it gives you that boost, that bump. If you are mediocre at your job and you're vulnerable, then it reinforces and solidifies your mediocrity. In other words, "I'm kind of a C-player at work and I keep showing up to work talking about, again, the vulnerabilities and mistakes, challenges, et cetera." Then people are going to look at me, and they're going to say, "Yeah, I get why Jacob is a C-player."

So this is why the competence piece is so important. This is why you want to demonstrate that you're closing that gap because you don't want to get stuck in that purgatory of mediocrity. And I think that's a very important thing for people to remember, that competence and vulnerability go together. Don't just focus on one or the other.

Beth Almes:                     

And you've really got to learn and grow. Do what you say you're going to do to address that.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yes.

Beth Almes:                     

And if you say, "Hey, I don't know how to do this today. Can you help me out?" You have to actually demonstrate that you have learned how to do that thing.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yeah.

Beth Almes:                     

Yeah, so great and really insightful. So you've been on this podcast before. So the last question I always ask is about a moment of leadership in your life that changed you. So since you've answered that question for me before, though, I'll put a spin on that today about a moment when you saw a leader showing vulnerability that impacted you or vice versa, when you yourself have had to show vulnerability to the people you were leading as a way to move forward.

Jacob Morgan:                 

For me, it was talking about the panic attack with my team. Acknowledging and telling that to everybody was certainly very vulnerable, right. I mean, we're a virtual team, but we were all on camera, and we had our team meeting, and it was me and 10 or 12 other people, and I basically had to acknowledge and tell them that I was going through this tough time and why and the impact that the book had. But I also, again, demonstrated what I'm doing to solve the problem. I told them, "I'm going to see a therapist. I'm doing these different exercises to try to get better. I am separating kind of work in life."

And so I had to kind of acknowledge what I'm doing to close that gap to solve my problem. But I was also very shocked to learn that several other people on the team, I think four others, had experienced panic attacks, right. So 30% of the team that I worked with have had panic attacks. I didn't even know about it. They didn't necessarily happen when we were working together, but they've experienced it. So that was a very important moment for me being able to talk about that and acknowledge that and go over it with my team, and have them share it with me.

Beth Almes:                     

Oh, that's such a powerful moment. And maybe they modeled Ted Lasso on you. I don't know. Since he's now made it a very popular thing for leaders to have panic attacks, and it's okay that there's... that it's a part of how they are... they find strength as leaders. So thank you so much, Jacob, for coming on the show today and talking about your book.

It's my turn to make you uncomfortable and vulnerable when I say I really enjoyed the book and that I was really... there was a lot of moments for human connection. I think for leaders, a lot of us can recognize ourselves in what you shared in the book. So really a great book. Thank you for talking about it with us. And yes, thanks for spending the time with us today.

Jacob Morgan:                 

Yeah, thank you. It was a lot of fun. And if people want to hear actually some of the CEO interviews, they can head over to leadwithvulnerability.com, and then we're giving them to everybody who grabs a copy of the books. There's instructions on there. Again, if people want to go to leadwithvulnerability.com, and we share, I think, the CEO interviews with GE, American Airlines, WW, Mindy Grossman.

Beth Almes:                     

Yeah, sure.

Jacob Morgan:                 

And Edward Jones, Penny Pennington, and Tom Pollen, the CEO of BD. So those five interviews are available if people head over there.

Beth Almes:                     

Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much, Jacob. And thank you to all of our listeners who took time out of their day to take a few moments and improve your leadership style. Remember to make every moment of leadership count.

Get to Know Your Podcast Host:

Beth Almes is senior marketing strategist at DDI. When she's not busy sharing exciting new ideas to build better leaders, you'll probably find her with a spatula in hand cooking up a storm.