Great Leadership Requires Vulnerability #39
When you’re on an island in the middle of the ocean and you realize Mother Nature would decimate you with just one storm, that’s vulnerability. Knowing you’d be helpless when the storms rose and approached the shore, you realize your power is limited. It’s limited to your choices, your options and the number of flights out that day with space available.
Most of us feel vulnerable with much less at stake. It’s not life and death, but it feels that way. We’re confessing a truth, confronting a co-worker, approaching a difficult conversation, or realizing a relationship will no longer work for us.
Vulnerability is challenging. It’s a space where we feel loss of control, weakness, or being less than the others around us. Yet as Brene Brown says, when we witness it, we see courage and bravery. It motivates us to open up, push more, move forward and embrace the space where we feel we could break or be taken advantage of.
Whether literal or metaphoric, vulnerability isn’t easy, but it’s a place we all can grow from, lead from and successfully navigate change from. It doesn’t feel beneficial, but it is. It’s one of the most powerfully authentic places to begin anything new. Discomfort and vulnerability are siblings who encourage growth and learning for us all. Embracing them expedites the journey to great leadership.