Vulnerability in leadership involves:
- Opening yourself up to your team members.
- Reaching out to them.
- Closing the gap to encourage more interaction and synergy.
It allows you to show your human side apart from your professional persona as their leader. Some say that vulnerability helps motivate team members and fosters trust.
Vulnerability in leadership is a liability because you run the risk of diminishing your influence over your team. Leaders are seen as strong, capable individuals, and exposing your faults might make you lose your standing. Toxic colleagues and industry competitors may also exploit your weaknesses.
Vulnerability in leadership is a liability because you run the risk of diminishing your influence over your team.
If you’re curious about how vulnerability can affect your leadership style, this article is right up your alley. You’ll discover how vulnerability as a leader can impact your team’s motivation levels, collaboration, and productivity. You’ll also learn how it can affect your stature within your team and the industry you belong to.
The Impact of Vulnerable Leaders on the Team
There has been a lot of noise lately about how showing vulnerability in leadership can positively affect a team. Some say it encourages teamwork and productivity, while others attest that it builds trust and solidifies professional relationships.
These may be true to a certain extent, but being vulnerable as a leader exposes you to many risks. You may be exploited and manipulated, especially if unscrupulous individuals get hold of sensitive and relevant information about you. Your reputation as a leader may also be put on the line.
Take a look at some of the more glaring ways being vulnerable can have adverse effects on your leadership:
Vulnerable Leaders Needlessly Expose Their Weaknesses
When leading and managing a team, you may sometimes need to connect on a deeper level with them to build stronger bonds and cultivate trust. However, when doing so, you risk revealing your weaknesses, exposing yourself to criticism, and subjecting yourself to embarrassment and disgrace.
Vulnerability takes fortitude. It may lead to over-familiarity, and you must be aware that when you’re in such a situation, any information other people gather from you may later be used against you.
Vulnerability takes fortitude. It may lead to over-familiarity, and you must be aware that when you’re in such a situation, any information other people gather from you may later be used against you.
Be careful when dealing with potentially dangerous individuals who can ruin your career in the blink of an eye. Here are some personality types you might want to be more cautious about:
- Narcissists. These individuals are more eager than most to resort to deceit to manipulate outcomes and ensure they always come out on top. They believe they’re superior to others, are self-serving, and often lack the integrity to achieve their goals honorably.
- Machiavellians. These people are deceitful and cunning. Unlike narcissists who love basking in the limelight, they prefer working on the sidelines, pulling strings, and manipulating people and circumstances to achieve their desired results. They are highly competitive and are willing to engage in unethical strategies.
- Social loafers. These individuals prefer riding on the success of others to achieve the objectives they’ve set for themselves. They are not willing to put in the hard work, are passive-aggressive, and may sometimes pull other people down to get a leg up on their perceived rivals in the business.
Vulnerability in Leadership Affects Your Reputation
Showing vulnerability as a leader may be seen by other leaders in your company as a weakness, thus providing them an easy opportunity to outperform you. Toxic bosses such as these are often dishonest and scheming, and they will grab every chance they get to promote themselves and fast-track their way up the corporate ladder, even if it means stepping on others along the way.
Showing vulnerability as a leader may be seen by other leaders in your company as a weakness, thus providing them an easy opportunity to outperform you.
Your competitors may also view vulnerability as a weakness that they can abuse. Your respectability and reputation as a worthy adversary may be damaged once your flaws become subjected to harsh criticisms, humiliation, and even ridicule.
Let’s envision a scenario — You’re in the middle of a full-scale war, deep in the trenches, and you’re the leader of a band of brave men. Enemy forces surround you, and the whole team is looking to you to strategize on how to defeat the enemy and lead everyone out to safety.
You have to be honest with your team. Inform them of your tactics, voice your fears, share your misgivings, and enlighten them about perceived loopholes in the plan. It is impossible to hide your weaknesses and true self from your team.
If you attempt to do this, they will eventually see through all the bravado and may hold it against you for not being transparent to them. However, if you show your team your true self, they will respect you even more for being forthright, especially about your weaknesses. They may even respond by helping you out.
But will you give your enemies the slightest clue that you harbor all these apprehensions and are working through all those weaknesses? No! You will be brave and show your opponents you’re a force to reckon with.
Being vulnerable as a leader may not be profitable, but practicing transparency within your team and showing them who you are is.
Being vulnerable as a leader may not be profitable, but practicing transparency within your team and showing them who you are is.
Vulnerability in Leadership May Demotivate Your Team
Suppose you have some experience already in leading and managing teams. In that case, you will find that much of your leadership authority and power stems from your recognized superiority in skills and experience in the business. An effective leader is someone the team looks up to as a role model.
It will be much harder to lead and manage a team if you become overly vulnerable and consistently reveal your weaknesses and fears to them. Maintaining a good leadership status becomes more challenging if you constantly show vulnerability to your team members, especially when uncalled for. This may significantly reduce your influence, limit your credibility, diminish your respectability, and damage your authority as a leader.
Once your authority as a leader is compromised, you will find it easier to effectively lead and manage your team toward the goals you have set. Here are some adverse effects you might observe in your section when you show too much vulnerability as a leader:
- Diminished productivity. When team members are demotivated, they take on a more passive stance in accomplishing their tasks in an efficient and timely manner.
- Poor collaboration. Team members who are demotivated develop disinterest in working synergistically as a group.
- Low employee satisfaction. When team members are no longer motivated, they will soon become apathetic toward their jobs. Close on its heels are unhappiness and discontent, eventually leading to a higher employee turnover for the company.
| Adverse Effect of showing too much vulnerability as a Leader: | Description |
| Diminished productivity | Team members will take a passive stance in accomplishing their tasks. |
| Poor collaboration | Team members who are demotivated will be disinterested in working together. |
| Low employee satisfaction. | When team members are no longer motivated, they tend to be unproductive and soon quit. |
Here’s a video that shows the adverse effects of vulnerability and 5 signs that you might be “overdoing” it at the expense of your own self-protection, and how you can show up differently.
Final Thoughts
Being vulnerable as a leader may be a strength if you expose yourself only to the right people. Those you fully trust, such as good friends, devoted family members, and dependable colleagues, can help you reinforce your strong suits, expand your opportunities, and help work on your weaknesses.
Alternatively, showing vulnerability to the wrong people can be hugely detrimental. Some people may try to outperform you by exploiting your flaws, while others might attempt to take the upper hand through manipulation and deceit.
Showing vulnerability as a leader is extremely risky, so go down this road only with people who have already earned your trust and respect.
