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<\/div>\nJacob Morgan is a speaker, futurist, corporate advisor and author of five books, including his latest, Leading with Vulnerability: Unlock Your Greatest Superpower to Transform Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization<\/em> (Wiley, 2023). The book is an outgrowth of Morgan\u2019s conversations with business leaders who told him they were conflicted about displaying vulnerability. While they wanted to share their struggles, they also felt the need to project confidence and competence. Morgan interviewed 100 CEOs and surveyed 1,400 employees for the book.<\/p>\n Based in California, Morgan worked in technology and social media for years, eventually becoming interested in leadership and work issues. <\/p>\n What\u2019s the difference between being vulnerable and leading with vulnerability?<\/strong><\/p>\n Vulnerability is doing something that exposes yourself to potential emotional harm. Leading with vulnerability is being a leader who intentionally opens themselves up to the potential of emotional harm but takes action to create a positive outcome. <\/p>\n Simple example: You made a mistake. Vulnerability is going to your leader and saying, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I made a mistake.\u201d Leading with vulnerability is, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but here is what I learned, and here are the steps that I\u2019m going to take to make sure that this mistake does not happen again in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s the benefit of leading with vulnerability? <\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you\u2019re only good at the leadership piece of the job\u2014closing deals, bringing in money, things of that nature. If I were to go to one of your peers or employees, they may say that you\u2019re closing deals and making money, but they have a hard time connecting with you. They don\u2019t get motivated, engaged, inspired. <\/p>\n Similarly, let\u2019s say you were good at the vulnerability piece. They might say you\u2019re an awesome person and that you have great chemistry, but you aren\u2019t the best leader for this role because you\u2019re not demonstrating competence. Leadership plus vulnerability means having a connection. <\/p>\n ‘Vulnerability is what helps create trust. Exposing yourself to the potential of emotional harm is what gets people to trust you.’<\/p>\n Can you make a connection without vulnerability?<\/strong><\/p>\n No. Vulnerability is what helps create trust. Exposing yourself to the potential of emotional harm is what gets people to trust you. Someone might trust somebody on a competency level. They may trust that you have the capabilities required to do your job. But there\u2019s also human trust. Do I trust that you\u2019re going to look out for me? Do I trust that you have my best interests in mind? <\/p>\n How can you ensure that someone won\u2019t use your disclosures against you? <\/strong><\/p>\n At some point, it will be used against you. That\u2019s just the nature of life. But people are far more trustworthy than we give them credit for. [If fear keeps you from being vulnerable,] it means that you\u2019re going to miss out on opportunities. You don\u2019t want to get into the mental habit of saying that because you had one bad experience, you\u2019re never going to do it again. That\u2019s a leadership killer. Leading with vulnerability is where trust and innovation and a lot of these things come from.<\/p>\n Instead of saying, \u201cI\u2019m never going to do it again,\u201d ask, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t that go well? What did I learn from this situation? What did I learn about myself? What did I learn so that in the future, I can avoid this mistake happening again?\u201d You can always make sure that at least you have a learning moment. <\/p>\n What role does HR have in \u00adpromoting leading with vulnerability? <\/strong><\/p>\n HR has a unique responsibility to put the emphasis on why this is such a crucial topic and is responsible for guiding and shaping the future of the organization. It\u2019s HR\u2019s responsibility to help the organization understand why these elements are so important and to teach, guide and educate them.<\/p>\n What\u2019s stopping leaders from \u00adadopting this approach?<\/strong><\/p>\n We have to break a lot of the leadership stereotypes. The No. 1 reason why people do not do this is because they don\u2019t want to be perceived as being weak or incompetent. The second reason is culture doesn\u2019t encourage it. And then, third and fourth, which are tied, is: \u201cI don\u2019t want to share something that people can use against me\u201d and \u201cI don\u2019t want my ideas or feelings to be rejected or dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n How do you break the stereotype?<\/strong><\/p>\n You empower those around you. You tell people you work with, \u201cIt\u2019s OK if you do things differently, or if you try to experiment and do something that we haven\u2019t done.\u201d It\u2019s very tempting to stay in your comfort zone and get into the mentality of: \u201cWe\u2019ve always done it like that here.\u201d That\u2019s usually never going to make growth happen. <\/p>\n What will be the biggest challenge for companies for next year? How about in five or 10 years? <\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s going to be balancing humanity and technology. We\u2019re already starting to see a massive influx in the use of ChatGPT and generative AI. [The technology] is only going to get exponentially better. The challenge is: \u201cHow do we keep our organization human while using technology to be more productive and efficient?\u201d <\/p>\n Everybody inside an organization has lots of different jobs. Some of those jobs can be done by technology, and some of those jobs are better suited for human creativity and innovation. The first thing that we need to do is separate the person from the job and identify those jobs that a person can do and which one of those could we use technology for. Things change so quickly that it\u2019s hard to even imagine five years out. I think in five to 10 years, technology will be at a scale that\u2019s unimaginable.<\/p>\n Should companies get involved in social issues? <\/strong><\/p>\n It depends. Where does the issue fit within the values of the organization? Does it align with the business or not? Are the issues impacting your customers, employees or broader community in a significant way? If the answer is no, chances are you shouldn\u2019t get involved. <\/p>\n Do you know what the impact is going to be, short term and long term? Do you have the resources to make an investment or contribution in a meaningful way? Not just in terms of money, but time and people? And do you have a plan of action for what to do if things don\u2019t go according to plan? <\/p>\n Interview by Theresa Agovino, \u00adworkplace editor for SHRM.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jacob Morgan is a speaker, futurist, corporate advisor and author of five books, including his latest, Leading with Vulnerability: Unlock Your Greatest Superpower to Transform Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization (Wiley, 2023). The book is an outgrowth of Morgan\u2019s conversations with business leaders who told him they were conflicted about displaying vulnerability. While they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[313,37,798],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-employee-relations","category-leadership-and-strategic-communication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/squarehr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n