Before you skim over, run away or think that perhaps vulnerability is not for you or not for your workplace, please read on for a minute. I promise it will make an impact – this stuff changed the way I show up every day.

Myth #1 – Vulnerability is NOT weakness.

If you are like me, you have probably spent the majority of your adult life skipping over the true meaning of the word vulnerability. In my professional career there was no way the word vulnerability even got a pass through the front door of any of my workplaces!!  Vulnerability in the professional sphere often meant overwhelming feelings or just having too many emotions. And too many emotions often meant something was wrong, or rather something was wrong with me. As a die-hard Social Worker, feelings was my thing. However, trying to open up conversations about emotions and leaning into discomfort in several, if not all, of my workplaces was often met with, “Oh god, Jenny we are not doing feelings today”.

And that was the story of my life with vulnerability……..my childhood was often filled with comments such as, ‘come on, let’s move on’ or ‘no need to talk about that’ or my favourite, ‘let’s just sweep it under the carpet’.  Somehow the message that most of us were taught from a young age was that vulnerability was a weakness and that discussing emotions was not helpful in finding ways to process or move forward.  For me it wasn’t that anyone actually said “we are not doing vulnerability”, it was more that I could sense from an early age that big emotions made people around me feel uncomfortable and they were often quick to push me out of whatever I was feeling.   Fast forward 30 years and I can still see how people protect themselves, particularly in the workplace, from feeling vulnerable or from being perceived as too emotional.

It wasn’t until I dug deep into the teachings of Dr Brene Brown, that I actually really appreciated what vulnerability was and wasn’t.

Brene’s definition of vulnerability struck a cord for me and was the first of many ‘ah-huh’ moments in studying her work. Vulnerability, she says, is the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure (where someone can see your emotions and you cannot control what people make of them).  It is about being brave when we don’t want to. It is about learning to sit with the uncomfortable. It is about believing that you are worthy of conversation, thoughts and belonging.  It is about having the courage to show up and be brave, even when you can’t control the outcome. It is not about winning, losing or being right or wrong, it is about being your true self even when it is hard.

Vulnerability in the workplace could look like:

• Vulnerability is walking into your boss and asking for help
• Vulnerability is asking for what you need
• Vulnerability is the ability to have tough conversations
• Vulnerability is pitching an idea and not knowing the outcome
• Vulnerability is talking up when you know something is wrong and it feels uncomfortable
• Vulnerability is admitting a mistake
• Vulnerability is circling back and apologising for something that was said or done.
• Vulnerability is talking to your line manager, leaning into your values, your authentic self and asking for what you need with no expectations of how that meeting will go.

Yes, we are totally exposed when we are vulnerable. Yes, we might feel, alone, small and uncertain. But we have done so daring greatly and in doing just that we are learning ways to show up and be brave.

Vulnerability share Moment: So here’s the thing, just because we talk about what vulnerability doesn’t mean that it is easy to do. I personally spent the better half of my professional career trying to outrun vulnerability in the workplace.  To me vulnerability, as I mentioned, still felt like weakness.  Asking me to show up and be seen and learn to have a voice, meant that my shame gremlins (the voices in the head that told me I was not good enough) came into play. It was really tricky to be vulnerable when my default button was being terrified of what people thought or not being good enough. Truth be told, I got very tired of being a chameleon and hustling for my own sense of self-worth. I needed to learn what it meant to be truly vulnerable. I needed to sit with the notion that this process was not always going to be easy.

The choice I choose was to look at how I responded when I showed up, and how I responded when I was confronted with uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. I learnt to ask for what I need and that meant that I had to sit with a little uncomfortable, talk about how I was feeling and learn to have the hard conversations.

As a therapist and behavioural influencer, I am embracing the teaching of Brene Brown and sharing her research to professionals where ever I can. I have seen first-hand how understanding these concepts and wrapping language around these behaviours can improve how we show up at work every-day and transform the way we live and lead.

Power of Vulnerability:  https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en

Netflix Special : Brene Brown Call to Courage