Jacob Morgan, author of ‘The Future Leader,’ joins TheStreet to explain why some leaders mistake being vulnerable for being weak.
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00:00So, when we think about some of the things that leaders do for employees, I think there
00:03are a couple missteps that leaders frequently make.
00:07One is they assume that they cannot be vulnerable at work.
00:10They assume that vulnerability is a sign of weakness, they assume that if you're vulnerable
00:13at work, people are going to view you as being incompetent.
00:16And so I recently wrote a book called Leading with Vulnerability.
00:19And I talked to 100 CEOs and surveyed 14,000 employees, and really dove deep into the subject
00:26of vulnerability.
00:27And what I found is that the ideal thing that a leader can do is not just be vulnerable
00:32at work, but combine vulnerability with leadership or competence with connection.
00:37So very simple example of this might be, instead of saying, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, which
00:42is being vulnerable, you add the leadership to it.
00:44So you might say, I'm sorry, I made a mistake.
00:47But here's what I learned from that mistake.
00:48And here are three things that I'm going to do going forward to make sure that mistake
00:52doesn't happen again.
00:53So as a leader, don't be scared to show emotion or vulnerability.
00:57But at the same time, when you're doing that, add leadership to that mix, add competence
01:01to that mix.
01:03I think that's a very, very important thing for leaders to do.
01:06And second, I think we're seeing a massive change as to the types of leaders we're seeing
01:14in organizations.
01:16And there are a lot of different attributes and skill sets that I think we're starting
01:19to see much more of.
01:21So these are things like thinking like a futurist, being a coach, leading with vulnerability
01:26as I talked about.
01:27And I think a lot of it centers around human centric leadership.
01:31And so what that means is creating a corporate culture in an organization where you don't
01:37assume that employees need to work there, but creating an environment where people actually
01:42want to work there.
01:43And that I think is a very big shift in the minds of a lot of leaders out there.
01:47And they're trying to figure out how to actually do that.
01:50And all of that starts by having conversations with your employees and treating them like
01:54human beings and not just as workers.