Vulnerability in the workplace
There are popular books circulating that say the key to success and the company growing to the next level is for risk-taking, courage, and failure to be welcomed and encouraged. But we don’t take the time to break down the old culture first: office politics, leave your emotions at the door, do things my way, know your place and act appropriately for your level, etc. All of these hinder the ability for vulnerable acts like risk-taking and creative thinking.
Brave happens when we dare.
Dare to show up.
Dare to be vulnerable.
Dare to risk.
Dare to make unpopular decisions.
All of these require courage and all are an act of vulnerability.
If you google vulnerability in the workplace, the top hits you'll get are something like “Why vulnerability is crucial to success.” If you look up vulnerability in relationships the top results talk about it being key to the relationship’s success. So if vulnerability is what’s crucial and key to success, why is it not embraced more often in real life?
Vulnerability has become a buzzword, (thank you Brene Brown) but I want to give some examples of what it actually looks like, to show that while we may talk about it and say we want it, we often have no clue what to do when confronted with someone else’s vulnerability.
Vulnerability is your friend telling you that they are having money trouble and are afraid they won’t be able to pay their bills.
Vulnerability is your employee telling you that it feels like all you ever say to them is what they’re doing wrong, that they don’t feel appreciated, and that you feel that they can’t do anything right.
Vulnerability is a colleague saying they’re suffering with depression.
Vulnerability is speaking up about racism and confronting your family about a comment they made that was hurtful.
Vulnerability is a direct report telling you that the team is struggling because they need clearer direction and defined expectations, but you’ve been too busy recently.
Vulnerability is taking on a big new project, trying a new approach and failing
Vulnerability is a man prioritizing his family when he’s judged for not working 50+ hours a week.
Vulnerability is realizing you hate your job and choosing to start something new when you have two kids at home and bills to pay.
Vulnerability is becoming emotional in front of your boss because the work environment is too toxic and stressful when the office culture says “showing emotions hinders your career.”
Vulnerability is a woman saying she might need to stop working to be more available to her kids.
Vulnerability is a man who was recently let go from his job because he wasn’t part of the direction of the company’s new plans.
Vulnerability is a woman saying she doesn’t want kids.
Vulnerability is sharing your story about growing up black in an all-white community.
I know that is a lot but I wanted to show examples from all areas of life that we might be faced with. I also intentionally worded the first ones as being on the receiving end, because I think the problem with us being comfortable with vulnerability is not as much of us being willing to open up and be vulnerable, but us knowing what to do when someone is vulnerable with us and how often we fumble when faced with it.
If we are going to lead vulnerably and start practicing it ourselves, then we have to be ready when someone takes that risk with us.
Part of the issue is that we are often uncomfortable with other people’s pain. Sitting with someone in their pain, with their shame, with their process, is tough. We say we are open to it, but in practice I’ve seen more often than not, people having a difficult time with it once they’re faced with it.
For example, a couple of years ago when both Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain committed suicide, I saw so many people post on social media about how sad it was and that if anyone they knew was considering suicide, to reach out to them and that they were there for them. My first reaction was actually “red flag, red flag!” Yes, that is wonderful, and those battling suicidal thoughts need people to turn to in those times, but people suffering with depression to the extent of suicide is a real and dangerous thing. And most people are ill-equipped to know how to handle that. I have seen people reach out when going through depression and how others froze not knowing what to do with that information. I also have seen people distance themselves from people when they are going through these things, probably because they don’t have the language or know what the best action is to help. We have to know when to encourage others to seek help and also know how to sit with someone in the midst of their pain, and not try to be the help.
When it comes to leading from a place of vulnerability and creating a culture of it in our work and teams, there is a dichotomy at play that I think we have to tackle before we can start telling people to be vulnerable in the workplace.
There are popular books circulating that say the key to success and the company growing to the next level is for risk-taking, courage, and failure to be welcomed and encouraged. But we don’t take the time to break down the old culture first: office politics, leave your emotions at the door, do things my way, know your place and act appropriately for your level, etc. All of these hinder the ability for vulnerable acts like risk-taking and creative thinking.
As someone who has worked in corporate leadership, and specializes in Leadership & Organizational development, I can confidently say that you cannot safely have vulnerability in the workplace if we don’t take the time to intentionally break the traditional corporate culture down.
Vulnerability won’t work and those who take the risks will be punished and pushed out.
I truly believe and have seen in my own life that vulnerability is required if we are going to lead with courage, have meaningful connections, and if we’re going to live our lives with purpose.
But I also know that in order to get there, we have to be prepared when we are faced with another's vulnerability and learn how to embrace it, sit with them in it, empathize, and move closer, not further away, in our connections.
The Myths about Purpose
In leadership, one of the most common complaints I’m asked about is burnout:
How to avoid burnout | What do you do to fix burnout | What are the signs of burnout...
It’s a hot topic because it is so common. I often think of burnout like cancer for your work. It starts in one area, and over time it slowly starts to creep into every area of your work:
Your projects
Your co-workers
Your relationship with your boss
Your energy levels
Your ideas and problem solving
Your focus & motivation
Eventually, it’s taken over. Most people think they can manage it while they figure out how to make a change. Quickly, and almost silently, it starts to creep into their personal life. Before you know it, you’re unhappy at work and taking it out on your friends and family, and start looking for things to numb the unhappiness. This is where the signs of a mid-life crisis or full-blown breakdown start to show up
Lots of people speculate over what causes burnout, but over the last three years, I have been researching and studying burnout. Through my interviews and research, what I have come to find is that the leading cause of burnout is disconnection from purpose.
An independent research & consultancy firm has been performing research for over 60 years through conducting assessments in the area of motivation and unique work style. What they found is that when you are working outside of your inborn personal traits around your motivation style- the individual can only adequately perform for about 6 months before their performance drops or they burnout. So much of our motivation is tied to our ability to work connected to our purpose, so it is no surprise that disconnection from purpose accelerates and causes burnout.
We are not made to live outside of our purpose or out of alignment with our strengths, values, and motivation. These my friends are what causes us to be unfulfilled in our work, our health to deteriorate, and our relationships to suffer.
Knowing and being connected to our purpose is essential for high performance, self-motivation, thriving relationships, and overall success.
If you read that and are discouraged because you don’t feel like you have any idea what your purpose is, don’t be. A few myths around the idea of purpose that we have to address:
Purpose = knowing what career or job you're supposed to be in. Purpose is not about a particular job or career. It has nothing to do with that. It’s about how you live your life, how you show up to others, and the choices you make. You can actually be living out your purpose in almost any career- as long as you are rooted in your purpose.
You can’t live your purpose until you quit your job and pursue your passion. Sometimes living your purpose looks like making a career change, but not always and it definitely doesn’t require you to. This is the main thing that holds people back from living fully in their purpose. They live in this place of “one day”. Until I (you fill in the blank), I’ll just be waiting to finally, one day, get to walk out my purpose. This is a lie. Purpose is deeply etched inside who you are and how you decide you are going to live your life, and you can start living from that place today- without anything in your present circumstance changing. In fact, doing this often helps the places that are out of alignment with your purpose start to shift and you start to see change happen naturally, without forcing anything.
Purpose = passion. Passions are things you enjoy doing or spending your time on. Purpose is about your identity and intentionality. How you show up to the things you are passionate about is your purpose.
Purpose is about making my dreams come true. Your dreams coming true is not your purpose. Dreams are wonderful and we have forgotten the art and practice of dreaming big, but your purpose is not wrapped up in your dream (or past dreams). Purpose is the combination of an internal posture with outward service.
When leading from purpose, that last point is essential. Purpose is grounded in service. Yes, it is great to have dreams and goals you're going after, but your purpose is more about the areas you serve others in.
Purpose-driven leaders are servant leaders. What does this practically look like:
They look for ways to serve their teams and customers. How can they make their lives better? How can they improve their work or life?
They listen to understand and then meet them where they are
They help raise the bar in other's lives and then help to bridge the gap for each person to reach higher and go further
They sacrifice their own comfort for the betterment of their team
They make room for others at the table and give those below them opportunity to shine
They are committed to helping others grow. They promote publicly and correct graciously
It’s vital that we shift our thinking on what purpose is. When I first start working with leaders, their purpose is often self-serving but in doing the work, what they find is that in reality purpose is mostly others-focused.
The internal aspect of purpose is about intentionality, how we see ourselves, and how we commit to living outwardly. From there, purpose is lived through an outward expression to others and to the great things we find ourselves a part of.
It’s time to commit today to lead from purpose.
How purpose-driven is your leadership? Choose 1 or 2 areas you will commit to working on to reconnect your purpose to your leadership and your personal life.
Need help discovering your purpose? Go here to schedule a call to learn more about how you can discover your purpose and start living & leading from it in every area of your life.
The 80/20 Principle: How to hyper-focus and set priorities
Remember when the pandemic first hit and we all thought we’d spend a few months working from home and then things would go back to “normal?”
Yes, I've also had to come to grips with the fact that this is our new normal: sharing workspaces with 4 other people in our house, being full-time stay-at-home working parents, and now if you have school-aged kids you may be adding full-time teacher to that list as well, yay...
This week I worked with four different clients who all are doing their best to figure out how to lead their teams who are facing the fact that now, with their kids having to do school at home, they will be responsible for both their work responsibilities and their kid’s education. As leaders, we absolutely have to face the reality that this year will be different. All those incredible goals you and your team set back in January, have to shift (if they haven’t already), but more than just goals, your expectations for your team and yourself have to shift as well. Realistic expectations are key for success, health, and maintaining good relationships with each other.
But as leaders, we also know that we have a business to run. If we want to keep our jobs then we have to grow profits and deliver results. So how do we go this realistically- while maintaining our relational, mental, and physical health? We are going to have to get really clear on what is truly important and use the time we have to its full potential.
I wanted to share a tool that has helped me tremendously with my focus and productivity:
The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80:20 Rule. Simply put, the 80:20 rule is that 80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts. Several studies have found that 80% of a company's revenue comes from only 20% of their customers. So if you have a project due, or there are sales numbers or KPIs you have to hit, then you have to determine what is the 20% of your activity that you need to hyper-focus on in order to get those results but also what is the 80% of distraction that is wasting your time.
To make this easy, I put together a simple process to follow, that I call the 3 D’s:
Discover your top strengths - what you do best. Make a list of maybe 4 or 5 areas of strength.
Determine your key responsibilities. You can do this by grouping your tasks to create a list of about 10 responsibilities and then narrowing it down to 2 or 3 (MAX) that only you can do.
Delegate. Now, using your list above, you can see the other 7 or 8 areas that you’ll need to delegate to your team. If you don’t have a team, then you’ll need to discover what items on that list can come off (because honestly, they aren’t helping you achieve results) or you’ll have to prioritize them based on the key indicators and results and how each activity most contributes to achieving those. If it doesn’t, then it either comes off the list or will have to wait.
Help your team go through this practice as well. In your next team meeting, walk them through an exercise where they write down their strengths, group their activity into 10 responsibilities and help them narrow down the 2 or 3 that create the most impact. Then help them to know how to prioritize and focus on those key areas.
The reality is, most people will not, and cannot, work 40 hours a week in the current environment. The good news is that we don’t need 40+ hours a week to get results. We just have to hyper-focus on the activity that really creates impact and produces results, this is called the vital few. The extra fluff, also known as the trivial many (aka distractions), has to be thrown out.
If you want to learn more about The Pareto Principle, I highly recommend this article on using the 80:20 principle to become a better leader.
What are you doing to juggle all the competing priorities, in the midst of limited resources, space, and limited ability to connect and interact? Comment and let me know! It's so important to be learning from each other.
Lastly, If you're looking to optimize your leadership to drive results, improve team effectiveness, lead change, achieve balance so you can show up well in every area of your life, determine your career goals and work from your purpose, and all the skills needed to lead in the midst of a pandemic go here to schedule a call to learn what executive and leadership coaching can provide for you.