The Power of a Vulnerable Leader
Redefining Leadership In A More Human Way
I’ve spent my entire professional life in a professional environment that’s renowned for dismissing vulnerability. As an Air Force officer, remaining “calm, cool, and collected” is a part of my professional persona. It’s one of my daily duties. People in my circles frown upon showing emotion, displaying uncertainty, or admitting defeat. In fact, part of the reason why the US Military values this calm, cool and collected persona is because, in times of stress and tension, the ability to project calm can actually keep people alive.
For years, I tried to live that persona, not just at work, but at home, too. This became a task which I usually found difficult, and sometimes found impossible.
I’m an introvert who struggles with anxiety. In other words my natural disposition is the opposite of calm, cool and collected as a general rule. Feeling the pressure to maintain that persona for twelve to fourteen hours a day at work started to have negative impacts on my mental health and stability not long after I came on active duty, and only got worse the longer I served. Finally, it all came to a head on my first deployment to Iraq in 2011, which is the story that I’m going to share with you now.
On the night Osama Bin Laden was killed, I was asleep in my bed on a Forward Operating Base in Iraq. I found out about Operation NEPTUNE SPEAR like most people did, reading the news the next morning. It was gratifying, that the man behind the 9/11 attacks had finally been tracked down and eliminated while I was deployed in the Middle East. It made me feel more a part of things, like some act of cosmic justice had been done on my watch.
The next night, May 4th, 2011, our base got hit. In retaliation for the Bin Laden raid, insurgents struck all throughout both Iraq and Afghanistan, at US and coalition bases in both countries. Our outpost in the arid center of the Iraqi dust bowl was hit by no fewer than 26 rockets and mortars. Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt. My team and I, working the night shift on the southern tip of the base, watched as the tracers and incendiaries whizzed overhead toward the center of the housing complex.
On that night, though I didn’t realize it at the time, I changed. The realization that others are trying to kill you is a sickening one. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that I woke up to my reality, rather than saying that I changed. Basically, I could no longer hide myself behind the persona I’d worked so hard to create. Without conscious thought, I became vulnerable. Literally and figuratively. After that night, the anxiety that I had felt my entire life about vague and nebulous things that could never actually happen suddenly had the perfect scenario to remind me of over and over again. No longer vague, Anxiety could now whisper to me “this could happen again.”
Before the attack, my time in Iraq had actually been productive, fulfilling and even enjoyable at certain moments. Looking back on it now, I still remember the sunsets over the red dunes, the way the trees, what few there were, looked so out of place in the surrounding desert. I remember flying over farmland in a helicopter, marveling that anything could actually grow, let alone grow so green and fertile, in that desert.
Before May 4th, my first deployment had been a welcome relief, a break, a fresh start. Right before deploying, I had gotten out of an assortment of viciously toxic relationships; relationships that had changed who I was, and how I saw myself. My entirely literal “wilderness experience” had been a way to reset myself, to work through some of the mess that had entered my life.
While I didn’t realize it at the time, that one night in Iraq revealed that I could never be the person I thought I had to be as a leader. If great leaders were always rational, calm, confident, and charismatic, the person I was, and still am, was out of the running for that job. I began to wonder if the military and I were fundamentally incompatible.
A couple of years after I returned from that deployment, I began to experience panic attacks. Since the trauma of May 4th, 2011 was so far in my past, it seemed totally unfair to me that the attacks would begin at such a length of time afterwards. I had considered myself to be pretty well recovered from my experience in Iraq. At that point, I began to realize that something about me had altered during that deployment, and it was only now coming to the surface. Unlike the entire rest of my life up to that point, I was unable to maintain even a shred of that “calm, cool, and collected” facade that had been my armor to hide behind since I had joined the military. I had nowhere else to turn, and I couldn’t get the anxiety and panic out of my head.
At this point, my now-wife entered my life. In order to keep this post to a reasonable length, I won’t detail all the ways in which she has changed my life for the better, but I will say that she’s the person from whom I’ve learned the most about the importance of vulnerability. Not only did she teach me about the importance of being vulnerable within the context of a marriage, but she encouraged me to begin putting aside my armor of “calm, cool, and collected” at work, too.
Instead of focusing on always maintaining a facade of calm, I began to focus on actually solving my own problems, rather than hiding their effects. I began to focus on finding the areas of my professional life where I was weak, areas like decision-making, focus, and productivity, and I assessed what I could do to strengthen those areas. The problem, I started to realize, was that I had never really taught myself how to actually SOLVE problems, rather than just create the appearance of solving them. I began to actually identify the way that my mental and emotional makeup colored every aspect of my decision-making. Like tracing individual threads through a tapestry, I began to see how things connected and I achieved a greater understanding of myself than I’d ever had before.
While this idea of embracing the ability to be vulnerable has allowed me to overcome a lot of my anxiety and personal hangups, it’s also made me a better leader, and officer as well. Allowing myself to discard the notion that military officers must never show real emotion, or admit failure has been life-changing! In conversations with subordinates, in daily interactions with other officers and in professional development, I’ve been able to finally be myself at work. More importantly than that, I’ve become a better leader, and a better worker. I’ve been able to relate to coworkers in a new way. I’ve been able to focus more on solving problems, and finding solutions by asking others for help, rather than focusing on whether or not my armor was slipping and revealing my own shortcomings. It all has to do with the way I’ve incorporated authentic, honest, vulnerable discussions, questions and approaches into my professional life.
Two years ago, I got the opportunity to take a job as an instructor at one of the largest officer education schools in the military. I jumped at the chance, because I know for a fact that there are a lot of officers who are just like I was: Afraid to be themselves. For that matter, there are a lot of people, period, who are afraid to be themselves at work. There are a lot of people who think that they can’t afford to let their guard down, or to admit ignorance or failure at work. But here’s the truth: Fear of vulnerability is killing our society, slowly and painfully. Fear of vulnerability is stifling creativity. Fear of vulnerability is silencing many of our most original and innovative voices. Fear of vulnerability is destroying home lives, work lives, and social lives left and right. This truth is why I do what I do. It’s why I write, why I teach, why I mentor young officers. It’s why I’ve created online courses focused on leading through change and uncertainty. This truth is what I want to shout from the mountaintops of society: vulnerability is what makes us human, and it is inseparable from any kind of real, honest, authentic relationship with another human being.
You cannot lead other people (at least, not for long) without embracing your own vulnerability. You cannot run a business, or a family, without the willingness to be vulnerable.You cannot achieve your greatest potential in life without learning to embrace the strength that comes from being vulnerable.
Like what you’ve just read? How about joining my newsletter to keep in touch? That’d be awesome!
