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4 Ways to Demonstrate Your Leadership Vulnerability and Strengthen Your Team

4 Ways to Demonstrate Your Leadership Vulnerability and Strengthen Your Team

So you are the boss of your team. This informal title comes with a lot of negative baggage, like being bossy and bossing people around. The term implies authoritarianism, power and domination.

But the traditional authoritarian role of the boss is long gone. Even before the pandemic changed the tenor of the workplace, being the big cheese, the taskmaster, and the big boss was passé. Leadership has taken a positive turn.

Successful teams today are not led by Type A personalities who know everything and are always right. Instead, great leaders lead by inspiring their teams, starting by being loud and proud of their own vulnerabilities. Here are ways to show a little sensitivity and human fragility to build stronger teams.

1. Wear your heart on your sleeve

Wearing your heart on your sleeve isn’t just the stuff of teen angst or Hallmark movies. Your ability to express your emotions and show empathy shows your team that you care about them and not just their job performance.

Emotional intelligence is a requirement of modern team leadership. It’s recognizing that everyone, including you, brings personal baggage to the office every day. What happens outside the workplace affects what happens there.

This trait works both ways. In other words, if you show your team members your emotions, they will show you theirs. EQ involves your ability to recognize, understand and manage emotions. In doing so, you use it to build more focused and resilient teams.

Stress increases as the world becomes more and more conflicted. Showing that you are vulnerable to the same stressors as your team is a valuable leadership skill. Don’t be afraid to use it.

2. Be approachable

There is power in the words “I understand”. This simple phrase lets your team members know that you listen to them, recognize them, and empathize with them. It communicates familiarity in both directions.

Leaders tend to give off an air of formality and superiority in their workplace, even if it’s the opposite of how they are elsewhere. You may think you’re supposed to act this way because, after all, you’re the boss. If you don’t elevate yourself, your team won’t recognize your authority.

In sport, there are team leaders who are teammates and others who are coaches. But in business, you might want to be both. You need to build relationships with your team members both as someone they turn to for advice and as someone who is on the ground with them. Contributions and comments are reciprocal in this framework type of social contractwhich means everyone is upping their game.

Strong teams work on common ground. Being a good team player, even if you are the one in charge, will encourage everyone to bring their A-game.

3. Practice authenticity

It can be difficult to find truly authentic political leaders these days. But in business, they are the ones who build successful teams. When you demonstrate your ability to stay true to yourself and your values ​​even in the most difficult circumstances, your team will trust you to lead.

It’s certainly not always easy. Leaders often feel compelled to place blame elsewhere and are reluctant to admit their own limitations. But this causes their teams to react in the same way, pointing the finger at others rather than acknowledging their faults.

When you adhere to your principles and values, even when you fail, you expose yourself in ways that can exact a personal and professional price. At the same time, you show your true self as a leader with integrity. Your team will take note and strive to emulate your ability to accomplish difficult things when others are hesitant to do so.

You should adopt the practice of authenticity for your team. Your relationship and ability to communicate effectively with them, as well as the collective likelihood of success, may very well depend on it.

4. Freely admit your mistakes

No one likes to admit being wrong, plain and simple. It’s human nature to always want to be right. This is certainly true if you are in a leadership role.

But more than that, you may think that as a leader, you’re supposed to know everything. You are not. Like your team, you learn as you go. This is the only way to learn from your mistakes, improve your performance and increase your chances of long-term success.

By admitting that you are sometimes wrong, you create a safe space for your team members to do the same. You build a culture where innovation thrives because no one is afraid of not getting it right every time.

Thomas Edison is credited with saying: “I have not failed. I just found 10,000 methods that won’t work. Albert Einstein said, “A person who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” » If these two can admit their imperfections, you can too.

Lead with vulnerability

Great leaders embrace their vulnerability by using it to build great teams. Vulnerability is not a sign of weakness. If anything, it’s a game changer in a world that could use a lot more of it.