…or credibility
Leadership culture has a strange relationship with vulnerability. We talk about it in workshops, quote Brene Brown in slide decks, and then walk into the next meeting performing certainty we don’t feel.
That gap between what we say we value and how we actually show up is one of the most expensive things in any organization.
What Vulnerability Actually Is
It’s not oversharing or performing emotion. It’s not telling your team your personal problems to seem relatable.
Vulnerability in leadership is the willingness to say the true thing even when it’s uncomfortable. “I got that wrong.” “I don’t have an answer yet.” “I’m working through this too.”
That kind of honesty is disarming in the best way. It gives other people permission to stop pretending too.
Why Leaders Avoid It
Because at some point, most of us learned that leaders are supposed to project confidence. And we confused confidence with certainty. The two are not the same.
You can be completely confident in your ability to navigate a hard situation while being genuinely uncertain about the outcome. That combination of calm and honest is what people actually want from their leader.
The Practical Version
Start small. In your next one-on-one, name something you’re working on personally as a leader. Not a confession. Just make it about honesty. “I’ve been thinking about how I give feedback and I want to get better at it.”
Watch what happens in the conversation after that.
Psychological safety doesn’t get built through policy. It gets built through moments where the leader goes first. Vulnerability is how you go first.
This is one of the core ideas in my book, I Don’t Know, What Do You Think? It’s a leadership fable about what happens when a leader finally stops aiming for certainty and starts being honest with the people around them.
Grab the free Lead Like Jim Checklist at the link below. Four leadership habits you can start this week.
Or pick up the full book at lucasmcalpin.com/leadership-fable/
Want more like this? Start with Chapter One of my book.
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