How Founders Can Build Extraordinary Leadership Through Vulnerability

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

Core ideas:

• Courage is the main ingredient of vulnerability
• Vulnerability is the foundation of trust
• Trust is the foundation of distinctive teams and leaders
• Vulnerability is a skill, and any skill gets better with practice

I recently had the honor of facilitating an executive leadership program in my hometown of Seattle. It was amazing to bring dozens of area executives together under the banner of personal growth and leadership development, but more amazing still was the focus of our first day. It was entirely built around personal leadership and the theme of vulnerability. The idea that a whole day would be dedicated to “opening up” struck me as something special, and something worth talking more about.

Why it matters

The topic of vulnerability has been top-of-mind in the business and leadership development community for years now. It’s also something I’m working on daily. A quick Google search of “leadership and vulnerability” returns nearly 65 million results and more than 600,000 scholarly articles. Last week, I watched Brené Brown’s talk The Call to Courage on Netflix, and if you haven’t seen it, it’s amazing and you should. Much of her celebrated work…