In a rapidly changing environment, leaders need to maintain a humble and eager-to-learn attitude. Hence, showing their weaknesses, this leadership style is more effective than a purely dominating one. However, this is not an easy task, as leaders who merely display vulnerability may appear lacking in confidence. So, how can they find a middle ground? Leaders can learn a few techniques on how to show weaknesses.
At the conclusion of the leadership training course, Fabian was very anxious. He realized he had to do something but had not figured out exactly what.
After graduating from university in 1994, Fabian joined an international construction company as a management trainee on a rotational program and advanced through the ranks over the years. His long-term experience in the workplace led him to recognize that exceptional leaders need an efficient, perfectly functioning team. Throughout his career, he has always tried to emulate those who were promoted for their overwhelming intelligence and skills.
However, in the past five years, Fabian’s business had constantly been snatched away by competitors. His team had failed to respond quickly to the clients’ constantly evolving expectations. Despite offering salaries matching the actual abilities of the staff, he still watched three capable subordinates leave the company. He began to notice that everything was getting increasingly difficult.
The company sent him to this leadership training course. The focus of this course was on how to lead employees to embrace the new challenges they have to face, enabling the company to adapt quickly and flexibly to market changes. Fabian noticed that only when he fostered a team culture with enough safety, where employees could boldly learn and bravely try new things, could his team produce the ideal results described in the course.
However, as he packed up and prepared to go home, Fabian was anxious. How could he ensure his prestige as a leader, yet show his tolerance for employees’ learning and making mistakes? How could he create a persona that is not infallible without appearing weak?
How to gracefully show weaknesses?
For many leaders, displaying their weaknesses and using this as leverage to improve their leadership is not easy. Although this leadership style is more effective than a purely dominant one in a volatile environment, the experience may not always feel good. In fact, the desire to hide one’s limitations is also a leading factor causing many leaders to suffer from impostor syndrome, especially when they are promoted to new positions and start to establish new work relationships. (Impostor syndrome refers to successful individuals who, despite having objective capabilities, cannot attribute their success to their abilities but instead to luck, timing, or excessive praise from others, believing they are “fraudulent” achievers.)
Of course, excellent leadership is not about being weak. While humility and a willingness to learn are necessary in fast-changing environments, a leader who only shows weakness can appear to lack confidence. So, how do we find a middle ground? Below are some techniques for showing vulnerability.
Approach learning with a normal state of mind. When trying new things, how do you talk to yourself? How do you communicate with your team? The way you conduct self-dialogue and your choice of language are important. Without care, if learning does not meet expectations, we can feel like failures.
Under the lockdowns caused by the coronavirus, many people had to learn to work in new ways. For example, I had to teach in front of a camera, not face to face with a room full of people. During my first few attempts, I didn’t know how to engage socially, my mouth was dry, and I was unsure where to place my hands. The camera made me uncomfortable, and I did not impress the senior leaders as I had hoped. A voice in my head kept telling me I had messed up. But in reality, I was just learning.
To show vulnerability with composure, the first step is to use language, including self-dialogue and dialogue with others. Language reminds us that learning always comes with practice. In all those key moments when we feel vulnerable, try using phrases like “The brain is like a muscle, the more you train, the stronger it gets,” or “Who has ever learned to walk without falling?” Language allows leaders to set an example, telling others that learning and making mistakes are normal and expected.
Share your darkest moments. Next, you can share parts of your personal growth journey to create a sense of long-term psychological safety for your team. Talk about the ups and downs in your life, receive constructive feedback from team members, and from their perspective, see what needs to be improved and adjusted. Openly sharing past mistakes and failures — rather than hiding them — can make leaders seem more approachable and less aloof. These experiences are your learning processes, and being brave enough to share them also suggests that you fear no judgment.
For example, in one survey, CEOs from various businesses reported their behavior in sharing feedback and seeking feedback with their senior management teams. The industries involved in the study were broad, including pharmaceuticals, healthcare, business services, technology, software, communications, government services, manufacturing, as well as consumer products and services. The findings indicated that when CEOs shared constructive criticism they had received in the past, team members felt a stronger sense of psychological safety. Share those important moments when you were forced to adjust, to learn something new, and this will help you to shape a team atmosphere that can candidly and concretely understand the notion of “everyone makes mistakes” and “constant learning is key.”
This result was confirmed again in another study—a field experiment showed that randomly assigned leaders who shared their experiences of vulnerability increased their team’s sense of psychological safety a year later (the control group, which had leaders seek vulnerability sharing from employees, did not). The conclusion is: leaders sharing feedback about past learning does not damage their reputation as effective and capable leaders.
Of course, it is not easy for leaders to disclose their weaknesses. In fact, interviews with the leaders and staff involved in the research revealed that many found the process of sharing their vulnerabilities and receiving feedback to be anxiety-inducing and embarrassing. These leaders admitted to feeling nervous before beginning, anxious that their abilities and the trust placed in them by their staff might be seen differently. As one interviewed leader said: “Talking about my development journey makes me a bit nervous… it reinforces all the insecurities throughout my career… I’ve always had impostor syndrome. I really feel that I’m not good enough.”
Moreover, the positive effects of a leader’s honesty on building psychological safety for employees do not appear immediately. Some employees may feel surprised and uncomfortable, while others may initially mistrust or even doubt the leader’s intentions. One leader described the immediate reaction of employees to feedback sharing with: “No one spoke,” “I looked around the group, and everyone was quiet.” Another leader said: “Everyone had an ‘on guard’ plus a ‘why are we doing this’ look.”
However, despite the difficulty of sharing a learning process that’s been fraught with setbacks, that is precisely why it can be effective. Traditionally, leaders are expected to display strength, confidence, and competence. Therefore, when a leader admits to having weaknesses and to failing, employees are likely to be very surprised, and they are compelled to actively seek a rational explanation. In other words, it makes them think harder about what the leader is doing. In this study, both leaders and staff were convinced that, over time, sharing feedback helps to normalize “weaknesses.” Feedback sharing encourages leaders to keep up their promises of consistent performance and motivates employees to reciprocate with their own learning feedback. Over time, these interactions and conversations make leaders more willing to open up, and employees more willing to speak candidly.
Demonstrate moral humility. Leaders understand that their morality and ethics are always under scrutiny. Moreover, given the frequency of ethical lapses in the workplace, leaders must find ways to motivate themselves to display ethical behavior within their teams.
Unfortunately, moral behavior aimed at influencing others can sometimes lead to negative outcomes. For example, if leaders advocate high moral standards, it can sometimes come across as hypocritical and repugnant. This could lead to followers becoming morally “derailed,” or make these standards seem trivial and inconsequential.
Ironically, when it comes to raising moral standards, leaders are more effective if they exhibit moral humility. There are two ways to achieve this. First, you can show that you recognize where you went wrong when addressing moral issues. Then, demonstrate an openness to others’ ideas when dealing with these issues. By expressing appreciation for the excellent qualities of others and acknowledging the knowledge and skills they have in resolving moral dilemmas, leaders initiate moral concern and moral dialogue while avoiding the moral superiority felt by some employees.
For example, in a study targeting 13 organizations in China (including manufacturing, real estate, and high-tech), researchers surveyed 64 leaders and 295 employees with different functional roles, including research, production, sales, and more. A second follow-up study was conducted in the United States with 250 participants. The findings of the two studies show that if leaders openly discuss and admit to mistakes made when resolving ethical issues, employees are less likely to engage in unethical actions (such as forging receipts and falsifying expenses), and such leaders are more open to employees’ opinions in resolving ethical issues.
If employees sense humility in their leaders when addressing ethical issues, they also contribute to more altruistic behavior. For example, these employees are more willing to help colleagues who are absent or overburdened with work. When leaders show humility rather than a sense of moral superiority, employees are more likely to offer unpaid, spontaneous labor, because they tend to believe that this aligns with moral correctness.
Leaders might wonder: “How can I create a stronger sense of psychological safety and adaptability for my team?” The answer is to comfortably display your weaknesses. This can also help leaders transform self-doubt into motivation for work, allowing them to honestly accept their own impostor syndrome.
Keywords: Leadership
Dan Cable | Article
Dan Cable is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School. His latest book, “Exceptional,” is dedicated to helping readers showcase their personal highlights and unleash their potential. “Alive at Work” introduces the neurological principles behind why people love their work.
Yang Qiushi | Translation Zhou Qiang | Edit
In an employee’s career, encountering an exceptional leader is a very rare thing. So, what qualities or abilities do employees consider in a good leader? We found that some are good at communication, some at delegating, some dare to expose their own weaknesses, while others are excellent career coaches, etc. If you have such a leader, just follow them with confidence.
What kind of leader is worth your confident following?
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