Vulnerability and Leadership

This month’s post from careerresilience:

Recently, I have been reflecting on the relationship between vulnerability and leadership, for two reasons, really:

One, after years of quoting Brene Brown’s

“You can have courage, or you can have comfort, but you can’t have both”

I finally read, her book Daring Greatly. How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we Live, Love, Parent and Lead.

It certainly helped me to see that increasingly those of us that are called to lead and instigate change cannot expect to be comfortable. Discomfort is most likely to become a familiar companion.

This article explores the relationship between vulnerability and leadership.

Two, observing Theresa May’s speech at the recent Tory party conference and our reaction to it.

It is not my intention or wish to become embroiled in a discussion around politics, but I am curious to understand what this means about how we see leadership and what we expect from our leaders.

Do we expect too much or indeed too little from our leaders?

Do we only want to see vulnerability and human frailty in our leaders, when it suits us, when it feels safe? Is it perhaps our own discomfort with vulnerability that stops us from accepting it in our leaders or others?

 

To read the article in full, please click here

Until next time

Janice Taylor

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