It’s Hard, but Connection Requires Vulnerability

“If you are preoccupied with trying to play a role or trying to behave, speak, or act the way you think others want you to, your mind won’t be free to perform at your highest level, be flexible, and be able to adapt to changes. Putting on an act eventually becomes exhausting and uses up valuable mental capacity that could instead be directed toward making important contributions at work.” 

— Carla Harris, in Expect to Win

“This week’s events made me angry.”

Beyond capturing my own feelings, that was a sentiment that came up in several individual and group conversations I’ve had over the past week. 

And for the leaders who were Black and Latino, that sentiment intersected with questions about how much they could express their authentic feelings at work. 

For context, the starting point of many of those conversations was that these leaders came into corporate life with the assumption that there would be bias. Many had parents who told them things like, “You have to work twice as hard to get half as far.” And, unfortunately, that message was reinforced by having experiences in which their credibility was questioned or where trust in others was met with betrayal. 

As a result, they had a self-protective instinct to avoid showing vulnerability, even as they understood the benefits of vulnerability for building relationships with others.  

Hence, most of these conversations landed on this courageous decision: Be vulnerable despite the danger.

The major reframe that helped leaders reach that conclusion was that while self-protection is legitimate, it's not always useful. Here were the others that were helpful: 

Reframe #2: Trust and vulnerability have multiple dimensions.

Respecting the implicit danger of vulnerability, one solution for these leaders was to shift from a “trust or don’t trust” or a “vulnerable or not” framework to something like, “What is something I feel safe revealing to this specific colleague to see if their response merits greater trust?”

That revised framework helped them see the baby steps toward greater vulnerability, giving them greater confidence that they could pursue it in a safe way. 

Reframe #3: Regardless of whether I tell my story, there’s already a story about me.

What’s interesting about the statement “This week’s events made me angry” is that while it’s somewhat evocative, it’s not particularly articulate. If we told someone that sentence, they could rightly ask, “Which events—the killing of Daunte Wright, seeing the video of Adam Toledo’s death, the mass shooting in Indiana, or something else?” or “Angry about what specifically?”

Were we talking about anger over the loss of life generally? Surely, that would seem uncontroversial. 

Was it anger over the biased impact of policing? That would be a statistically grounded notion, but is probably trickier territory. 

Was it anger that we don’t have stronger gun safety laws? Wow, now that’s full-on political.

When we don’t fully share our thoughts, it invites others to fill in the story based on their assumptions. Instead, by being more open, we tell our own story the way we’d like it to be understood. In this way, the vulnerable route may, in fact, be safer. 

Reframe #4: It’s not just what I believe, but why I believe it.

I recently spoke to a leader who is about to take a promotion and move to a new team. When talking about what he would communicate to them, it was clear that he had a professional belief in the value of teamwork and responding to team members’ needs. 

But in the way he was going to describe it, he would have left out his personal values—that the reason he cared about teamwork was that he valued his colleagues as human beings and wanted them to have a fulfilling experience.

It’s that kind of values statement that builds trust. But making that statement requires crossing the line into sharing about ourselves—or, in other words, being vulnerable.   

Moreover, due to the fact that they’re often one of the few Black and Latino leaders in their organizations, these leaders were often forced to share their views on the controversy of the day. Trying to avoid politics wasn’t practical for them. 

But here too, being open with their values (and experiences) was seen as a potential bridge to connect and to give a fuller context for why these leaders had certain perspectives. 

For example, we might disagree on a policy matter like defunding the police, but might connect on a shared desire for everyone to feel safe or for 13-year-old kids not to be killed.

Of course, the approaches here are nowhere near complete solutions for navigating these minefields. Several months ago, I asked, “Is vulnerability just for White guys?” And at the very least, I was heartened to see so many leaders who didn’t think so and who were ready to be courageous despite the challenges.