Vulnerability is Good Business

I am reasonably certain that my mother doesn’t read anything I write.

If I am wrong, it’s highly unlikely that she would remember this story, but fifty years later, I still do.

It was the day, as a very young boy, I cried while watching a Lassie movie.

For those of you not old enough to remember, Lassie was a fictional dog – a Rough Collie – who featured in a number of films and later on a TV series.

Lassie was a pretty big deal in its day and, like many kids my age, I was quite enthralled and emotionally invested in the adventures of the trusty dog.

I don’t remember the exact event or scene that precipitated the tears, but I’ll never forget my own reaction to them.

Despite my young age, my immediate reaction was to hide the fact that I had been crying from my mother.

Assuming I was five or six years old at the time, it was remarkable that I had already been conditioned to suppress overt signs of emotion or vulnerability.

To shed a tear or two at a sad moment in a movie should have been the most natural thing in the world.

Had I been open about the moment, I have no doubt that my mother would have offered some comfort and assured me that Lassie was really okay, that it was just a movie.

In many respects, the suppression of vulnerability doesn’t stop when we grow out of childhood. In fact, for many of us, it becomes more ingrained and potentially inhibiting, or even incapacitating.

Since there are few if any high school or college courses on the benefits of vulnerability, we are, for the most part, having to fly solo in figuring things out.

Harvard Business School’s, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, wrote in Confidence, “It is very hard for many executives to reveal that they do not have answers. They are unable to say the words “I don’t know” out loud, fearing that their authority will be undermined.”

We don’t want automatons in our workplaces. We’re not seekers of perfection and certainty from our colleagues and our managers.

What we want is authenticity in all of its beautiful uncertainty, enriched by its imperfections.

We want to know that people are real, that they, like us, have doubts, fears and worries.

We want to see their humanity, not their bravado or false confidence.

Authenticity is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous terms in business today. It has a beautiful ring to it, and it seems a rather admirable and worthy goal.

While there might be a good definition somewhere for authenticity, I’d proffer that a willingness to be vulnerable, to show a less confident, less certain side of yourself should be prominent on the list.

Even if that means you must own up to once crying during a Lassie movie.