HR BUSINESS PARTNER, BLOGGER, CONSULTANT/RECRUITER
A new year is approaching, and this may cause you to reflect on your management style. Maybe other people perceive you in a way that you’d like to change. But how do you do that in a world where we implicitly understand management as being powerful, capable of making decisions (quickly), and knowing everything?
GR Consult has discussed vulnerability management with anthropologist and organizational and management consultant Heidi Graff, of Interplay, to learn how managers can start incorporating more vulnerability into their management style.
Start by considering the response you get from other people
Think about the feedback you receive about your behavior. If you’re told that you’re tough when communicating, or that you react fiercely to mistakes, you can start with this. Consider how to soften your way of speaking or how to act so that your reports are not afraid to tell you about mistakes. Graff recommends starting to ask more questions instead of giving replies. Show other people that your goal is to learn so that, together, you can find out what went wrong or uncover the best solution to the issue. As a manager, you don’t need to make the impression that you have a response to everything. It’s perfectly ok to be insecure and to have doubts. The need to be superhuman is a myth.
Find a sparring partner
According to Graff, if you want to act with more vulnerability in your leadership, finding a like-minded sparring partner is worth its weight in gold. This person may be a mentor, a coach, or another manager. If you choose another manager, you’ll want to find someone outside your workplace, so that he or she is not part of—and therefore affected by—the culture. He or she can help you see how your traits affect those around you. .
Start by taking small steps
Graff always recommends that leaders take small steps if they want to be more vulnerable. For example, you can start by mentioning, at a staff meeting, a concrete mistake you’ve made. Be open and honest about it. Let your reports know that you were not very sharp in the given situation, and especially what you took away from it, and will do differently next time. In this way, you’ll come across as a human being with both good and bad sides, as we all are. Or you can start to react differently when your reports tell you about mistakes they made. Support them instead of getting angry at them.
However, it’s important to share your mistakes only occasionally, so that staff meetings and everyday work life don’t focus on errors. This would be exhausting and ponderous.
Discuss management vulnerability with your management team and your own manager
It’s a good idea to show more vulnerability in your management, but you cannot do this on your own. In some companies and organizations, you’ll need to go through a cultural change that you must agree with. For example, you can start by talking to your manager about the advantages of the working environment if people dared to share their mistakes. Or you can try to influence your management team so that they’ll find it natural to also share, e.g., projects that went wrong.
Also, bear in mind that you may be part of a company where vulnerability will never fit into the culture, no matter how much you try to change that. Consequently, you’ll need to consider whether you’re in the right company, or if it would be better to find a company that better matches your personality.
Pitfalls in vulnerability management
According to Graff, it’s important to set a boundary for vulnerability. If you’re 100% honest and convey a sense of “Here I come, take me as I am,” you’ll be making a mistake, as your job as a leader is to take care of the community. It’s not your role to be in the center, as others will find it intolerable to be around you. It’s a good idea to think about how you act in the group.
The same goes for sharing your private life. You may think that your reports should see you as a whole person, meaning that you share information about your divorce or other private matters that are eating at you. But maybe your reports aren’t able or ready to handle your honesty or they feel obliged to ask every now and then about how you are coping to feel like good employees. It’s okay to share that, for example, you suffer from a serious illness while simultaneously saying that you’ll tell them when you have news about it and that you’d prefer to keep your everyday working life focused on your duties. Otherwise, you might find the situation unbearable.
Possible payoffs
There are advantages in expressing more vulnerability. If you have the courage to ask more questions instead of giving more answers, you’ll encourage your employees to use their innovative force and find better solutions.
Or, if you dare to share errors and failures or focus on what you take away from them instead of hiding them, you may end up creating a culture in which you try new ways of doing things and make more changes.
If you end up being more productive and having a better working environment, that’s not so bad, is it?
Last but not least, Graff encourages you to engage in a larger degree of nuanced thinking. For instance, we’re used to defining “courage” as making (quick) decisions, acting, showing vigor, and taking the floor. However, we need to redefine courage and strength as daring to be vulnerable, saying that you don’t have an answer to everything, and bringing forward mistakes and poor quality. If we make this redefinition, we—and others—might more easily show our vulnerability. ~Gitte Randrup
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