The More Successful You Become, The Harder It Is To Be Vulnerable

This week I’m sharing with you a snippet of my conversation with Darcy Luoma of the Thoughtfully Fit Thursdays video series. We discuss the importance of leadership from a place of vulnerability, and how it can strengthen you as a leader.?

Sarah: I have a strong belief that strength actually comes from vulnerability. I believe this is true in my own business and team, and for all teams. As a leader, if you can lead by being vulnerable - watching for those moments where you can lean in to better understand a person, a dynamic, or share vulnerably how you are doing or what your struggles are - that's where you can truly connect and form strong relationships.

I think authenticity requires vulnerability. In vulnerability, you are showing strength.

It takes much more strength to be a leader who comes in and says to their team, "I'm not exactly sure how to do this. I need your help." It's incredibly important to be someone who hires people better than you to fill in the gaps that need to be filled.?

Most of my clients are founders; it's hard when you are at the top. It's lonely. It's challenging. The more successful you become, the harder it is to be vulnerable.

Leaders crave having a confidential sounding board, a safe place to really talk about the full spectrum. If you think about the best of life as 100% and the challenging, worst part of life as 0%, most C-suite leaders are only going to talk about the 40% to 80% of their life with those around them.?

They don't want to share the bottom 10% or 20%. And sometimes they don't even want to talk about the best with their team because there's a fear that people are going to want more from them.

So, there's never an opportunity to let their guard down. It's very easy to buy into the American philosophy of “the harder you work, the more successful you become.” But this puts people into misery.

I have a team that I put together to serve my clients' teams, to handle all the different kinds of issues with the C-suite executives, mid-level managers, and employees. They’re here to support people who are going through a range of life and work experiences. Whether it’s developing leadership skills, emotional intelligence or life issues such as going through a divorce or having fertility issues and wanting to start a family. In every company, leaders have all of these issues happening. But, the truth is, for the founders, it's lonely.

Darcy: Yeah, and so I'm curious, Sarah, it sounds like you are a very safe, confidential place for your clients to bring anything.

Sarah: One of my differentiators is my therapist background where I worked with all kinds of mental health and life issues, and also mental health illness. What many people don't realize is that when you're an incredibly successful business owner, you also have all those things happening in your life as well.

It’s incredibly supportive to have someone with expertise who can come in, not with a therapist perspective, but with all of that knowledge and leverage it, and create a very safe, confidential, sacred space.

I'm a brain nerd, so I'm interested in neuro linguistic programming, leveraging how our brain works already, positive psychology, and strength-based learning. Bringing all of that into the coaching relationship really catapults people forward in their lives.?

Best,

Sarah Fruehling?

Fruehling Coaching and Facilitation

[email protected]

fruehlingcoaching.com

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