282 Why Vulnerability Matters in Leadership and How to Do it Well with Jacob Morgan | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader

***DISCLAIMER: Please note that the following AI-generated transcript may not be 100% accurate and could contain misspellings or errors.***

[00:00:00] Mahan Tavakoli: Welcome to Partnering Leadership. I'm really excited to speak to you. Welcoming Jacob Morgan. Jacob is an internationally recognized leadership expert and author of the new book, leading With Vulnerability. Unlock Your Greatest Superpower to Transform Yourself, your team, and your organization. His extensive research shows how top leaders effectively tap into vulnerability to build trust, spur innovation, and guide teams through uncertainty. 

Jacob explains that vulnerability alone can cripple leaders while competence. With that vulnerability inhibits connection. The key is combining competence with strategic vulnerability, what he calls the vulnerable leader equation.

In our conversation, Jacob shared his insights from interviewing over 100 CEOs. And surveying near 14,000 employees worldwide. I really enjoy this conversation because I am a believer of the importance of vulnerability in leadership, and Jacob explains how that can be done. 

Well, I also love hearing from you. Keep your comments coming, mahan@mahantavakoli.com. There is also a microphone icon on partneringleadership.com. Really enjoy getting those voice messages. Don't forget to follow the podcast on your favorite platform and leave a rating and review when you get a chance. That will help more people find and benefit from the conversations.

Now here's my conversation with Jacob Morgan. Jacob Morgan, welcome to Partnering Leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with me.

[00:01:46] Jacob Morgan: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to it. 

[00:01:50] Mahan Tavakoli: I've learned a lot from you, Jacob including through your podcast and your book, Leading With Vulnerability: Unlock your Greatest Superpower to Transform Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization. 

Now, Jacob, the first question I ask every one of my guests is about their upbringing and how it impacted them, and I love the fact that you get into that in the book as well. Whereabout did you grow up and how did your upbringing impact you and your sense of vulnerability? 

[00:02:18] Jacob Morgan: It's interesting because I've written a few books over the years, and I don't think my background has necessarily played a role in any of those books. There's some like stories here and there, but this book in particular, I think is very connected and relevant to my background, my childhood and my family.

So I'll give you a kind of a little bit of a longer answer because I think it's important to have that context. My family grew up in the Republic of Georgia, so former USSR under communist regime. They were born in a town called Belize in the Republic of Georgia. They actually didn't know each other at the time, my mom and my dad.

But at the same time, they were both fleeing the Republic of Georgia and they went to Italy. And in Italy is where they actually met. From Italy, they moved to Australia, which is where I was born. And from Australia, they ultimately ended up coming to the United States. And that context is important because when you grow up in a communist regime, when you grow up in the former USSR, you can imagine what that world and what that environment is like.

And so growing up, my dad never practiced vulnerability, right? If you share your feelings, you talk about your emotions, you divulge too much. It could get you in trouble, especially in a place like the former USSR. My mother, on the other hand, she was much more open. She encouraged emotional vulnerability to talk about emotions and feelings and things of that nature. 

But I, as a young boy, who am I gonna grow up emulating my mom or my dad? I grew up emulating my dad. So I was always taught don't share your feelings, don't share your emotions. Nobody cares about your problems. Don't be a burden onto other people. Like none of that stuff, right? Typical, macho, tough guy. Just shut up and be the tank. 

And so that's ultimately how I grew up. And the reason why this is so relevant is because a couple years ago, I was standing in my bathroom and I was brushing my teeth. This was probably around, I don't know, 7:30 in the morning or so. We were getting our kids ready to start the day, and I'm brushing my teeth looking in the mirror, and all of a sudden I start to feel really weird and my heart starts beating very quickly. 

My resting heart rate's probably, 50, 60 beats a minute. I'm talking. It was like 1 20, 1 30, almost like I'm doing a jog. My vision gets a little bit blurry. I'm overcome with this feeling of dread and panic. And so I scream for my wife and I'm like, Blake, there's something really wrong. She tells me to lay down on the bed and all of a sudden my body starts convulsing.

If you have the flu and you get the shakes, that's what it felt like. I couldn't figure out what the hell's going on with me. Now, what made it worse is that this was during the holidays, so I couldn't get in to go see my doctor and I'm thinking, I'm having a heart attack. I'm gonna die. I'm in my mid to late thirties.

This is the end for me. Long story short, I finally get an appointment to go see a doctor, and the doctor says, let's do a scan of your heart. Let's just see if you're healthy or not. So she does a scan of my heart and she says, you're perfectly fine. There was nothing wrong with you. And then she says, you might wanna go see a different kind of doctor.

And she's pointing her to her head. And I'm looking at her thinking, You mean like a therapist? And she's yeah, you should go talk to a therapist. And I'm like, what? Are you kidding me? Long story short, I'm in a therapist's office. I did a couple sessions and it turns out that one of the things that, the big factor that gave me these panic attacks was this book, because it happened a few weeks after signing the contract for this book.

So this all loops back to this concept of vulnerability. And because vulnerability was such a foreign concept to me, because I never practiced it, I never embraced it. I thought it was, for weak people, the fact that I was now having to write a book about this and embrace it and to be vulnerable, my body and my mind was just like unable to comprehend that.

And I had a panic attack. And so that's why the kind of, the background I think is very relevant for me for this book. Because it's forcing me to do something and to be someone that I was very uncomfortable being. But it was a positive and optimistic journey, and I'm grateful that I went on it and I'm glad the book is finally done, 

[00:06:21] Mahan Tavakoli: Jacob. I'm glad the book is done as well. Additionally, just reading that story sold me on the power of vulnerability. In that I've been familiar with some of your work, over the years. I felt a personal connection to you with you showing enough vulnerability to share that experience.

[00:06:44] Jacob Morgan: Thank you. Being vulnerable can be a positive thing. I'm still, getting better at it. Still not easy for me, still very hard for me to do, but I've learned the power of it, especially inside of a workplace setting.

Specifically the concept of leading with vulnerability. 

[00:07:01] Mahan Tavakoli: Now, Jacob, one of the challenges we have comes from what vulnerability means. I looked up the definition in the dictionary  the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed physically or emotionally.

Oh my God, I don't want to be vulnerable.

[00:07:19] Jacob Morgan: Yeah. No, it's not a good thing. And of course one of the pioneers behind a lot of the conversations that we're even having on vulnerability has been Brene Brown. She's written a couple books over the last 15 or so years, 

So I draw a very specific distinction between vulnerability and leading with vulnerability. Now, a lot of people think of vulnerability, like you said, it's risk, it's uncertainty, it's emotional exposure. It's about doing or sharing something that can cause emotional harm. Now, in our personal lives, that can sometimes be good.

You talk about mistakes and challenges with friends, with family members. It creates that connection and stuff like that. It's very hard to have good friends if you're not vulnerable and open with them. But I was really interested in is it that simple inside of an organization? Because inside of an organization, we have a very different dynamic.

We have a hierarchy. You're responsible for people, you're responsible for money, you're responsible for decisions. It's a different environment and a different dynamic. So is it really that simple? Can you just show up to work all the time and ask for help? Can you just show up to work all the time and talk about your challenges and struggles and failures and all of these things?

And the answer to that is no. And I'll share a story if I may, I have kind of two stories. One story is from the former CEO of Continental Airlines, and this is Hollis Harris. In the 1990s, Continental Airlines was a struggling airline.

They were going through a tough time. And Hollis Harris, the then c e o did a town hall for, I believe it was around 40,000 employees at the time. And he went in front of his entire company and says, we're struggling. The company's going down, pray for the future of the company, that was the message that he had for his employees in a struggling company, pray for the future of the company.

Now I also interviewed Doug Parker, the CEO of American Airlines. He's the one who actually told me this story. And he pointed out, he said, you know what Hollis did was vulnerable, going in front of your people and saying that you don't know what to do. Pray for the future of the company. The company's going down.

You could look at that and say, well, there's transparency in there. There's authenticity in there, there's vulnerability in there. But as Doug Parker pointed out to me, what's missing in that is leadership. Now, if Hollis was a junior employee at the company, let's say he was Hollis in accounting.

He's been at the company for maybe one or two years, and he shows up to work and he says, oh my goodness, the company's going down. I don't know what to do. I'm gonna pray for the future of Continental Airlines. His employees are gonna look at him and say, Hey, you're probably having a tough day.

Why don't you take the rest of the day off? Let's go out to lunch, and that's it. When you're the CEO and you do that, you cause chaos and panic. Now, interestingly enough, the day after Hollis did that, he was fired. The reason I bring up that story is because as everybody knows, we went through the past few years have been very tough.

We went through a pandemic and I interviewed a hundred CEOs over the past few years. And during the course of the pandemic, there were a lot of CEOs that were also struggling. One of them is Fleetwood Gobbler. He's the CEO of a company called Sasol. It's a South African energy company. He became CEO of the organization shortly before the pandemic.

And the company was in a lot of trouble. They were 10 to $13 billion in debt. The banks were about to come in and repossess the business like we're talking about on the verge of bankruptcy. It's gonna be completely wiped out into non-existence. And he also had to address his employees in the town hall.

He gave a different message he went in front of his employees and said, look, the business is struggling. I am acknowledging that, and I'm not entirely sure of the exact path that we're gonna take, but I have a vision, I have a plan of where we can go. And together, I believe that we have a very talented team and we can come together to rebuild trust in our employees and in our customers.

Join me on this vision and let's turn this company around. Help me figure out the steps that we should be taking to get to this brighter vision. This future version of the company that I believe in, and that I see, that's a very different message to have. That too is vulnerable. But it also has leadership, and that's what I call the vulnerable leader equation, bringing together vulnerability plus leadership.

Too often what we do inside of our organizations is we only focus on the vulnerability piece, we show up to work and we say, I need help. I made a mistake. I don't know how to do this. And that is not the best approach to take. For example, it's one thing to show up to work and say, Hey, I made a mistake.

It's another thing to show up to work and say, Hey, I made a mistake. Here's what I learned from the mistake that I made, and here's what I'm gonna do to make sure that doesn't happen again. It's one thing to show up to work and say, I don't know, somebody asks me to do something and I say, ah, I'm sorry.

I don't know how to do it. It's another thing to say, I'm not entirely sure how to do that, but. Here's what I'm gonna do to figure that out. I enrolled in a course, I'm reading a couple articles. I have some resources that I'm going to let me take care of that, and I'll get back to you in a few days with what I figured out.

There is a difference between vulnerability and leading with vulnerability, and that's the key distinction that I make in the book 

[00:12:28] Mahan Tavakoli: To better understand that Jacob. Would it be correct to assume therefore leading with vulnerability fills in the gap of the not knowing and or struggling with something, with a plan or attempt at addressing it?

[00:12:46] Jacob Morgan: Yes. That is the key distinction. The way that I define and think about what it means to be a vulnerable leader is a leader who intentionally opens themself up to the potential of emotional harm while taking action to create a positive outcome. So I'll repeat that one more time because I think it's worth repeating.

A vulnerable leader is a leader who intentionally opens themselves up to the potential of emotional harm while taking action when possible to create a positive outcome. So you mentioned when you looked it up in the dictionary, it was, emotionally exposure where you could potentially be harmed.

That's this idea of just showing up to work and saying, I made a mistake. The key piece is taking action to create that positive outcome. And the action piece is, I think, where a lot of people, not that they're struggling, they just forget to do it. And especially if you're in a leadership role or you want to be in a leadership role, it's that competence piece that is so important.

You also have to be good at your job or demonstrate that you are trying to be good at your job. And what I think happens inside of a lot of organizations is we sometimes use vulnerability as a crutch to defend ourselves from why we're not competent. So if I'm in a role and somebody says, Hey, Jacob, your performance was maybe slacking a little bit.

Oh, I need help. I don't know how to do this, I'm being vulnerable, but I'm using it as a way to deflect from why I'm not getting better, where's the leadership there? Am I putting in the time, the effort? Am I taking courses? Am I talking about things that I'm learning?

Am I meeting with other people? Like where is the action to create that positive outcome? That is a very important distinction inside of organizations. 

[00:14:33] Mahan Tavakoli: I love that perspective Jacob, because a lot of times when leaders struggle with the thoughts around vulnerability is that they've been told in some messages that it's good to be transparent and talk about your challenges, but haven't then been told of marrying that with a plan that comes afterwards, which is important.

I was actually chatting with a CEO a week or 10 days back, and he was saying I don't get it. People want me to be confident about where I'm leading the organization and they want me to be vulnerable at the same time. And what you're saying addresses that type of challenge. Yes. Where I hear from a lot of CEOs and leaders.

[00:15:17] Jacob Morgan: Yeah. To that leader's point, you do need to be both. And the way that you are both is you marry in the competence with the vulnerability, that is where these things come from. In fact, one of the people that I interviewed for the book, he's a psychologist, he wrote a couple books Elliot Aronson, and he came up with this concept called the Pratt Fall Effect.

And he used to teach at the University of California Santa Cruz, which is where I went to school. And the Pratfall Effect is basically this idea that if you're highly competent, you're good at your job. If you are good at your job and you make a mistake, what starts to happen is that your perception of competence and likability goes up because you're good at your job.

But now you're also showing that you're human, that you've made mistakes. You can address failures, whether they're small or big, context of course matters. But the pratfall effect states that if you make a mistake and talk about failures and stuff like that, and you're good at your job, you get that boost.

You become viewed as more competent and more likable. The danger becomes, if you are not good at your job, you're mediocre, you're struggling if you're in that position, and you too are constantly making mistakes and talking about failures and challenges, what starts to happen is it reinforces your mediocrity.

So it's important that you be competent, highly competent at your job, because if you're not, you're really just going to crystallize in the minds of everybody around you that you're not good at your job. And eventually people are gonna start wondering what are you doing here so one c e o, the c e o of Smile Brands Steve Build. He said if you're in ninth grade and you keep showing up in ninth grade, having questions about sixth grade math, eventually a lot of the people around you are gonna be wondering why are you in ninth grade? Why don't you have a tutor?

Why don't you have somebody helping you? Why aren't you closing this gap between where you are and where you need to be? If you're not working on closing that gap, you're just gonna reinforce the fact that you don't belong there, so you will actually cause far more harm than good, which is why, again, it goes back to this idea that blending competence and connection, leadership and vulnerability is so crucial, and it's something that's really lacking.

[00:17:41] Mahan Tavakoli: That's an outstanding point, and I love Aronson's work on pratfall effect and wanna underline the point that you made Jacob in that it's when someone who is perceived as being competent makes a mistake and they've done experiments with the person, the professor, spilling coffee on himself or think like that, where they become more likable.

It's when someone is competent, when someone is incompetent, you then attribute that additional mistake or issue or vulnerability to their incompetence. So competence yes, becomes a basis of it. Now, one of the things that you go into in the book and is a huge challenge that I see with a lot of executives is the role that self-awareness plays in being able to lead with vulnerability.

[00:18:29] Jacob Morgan: Yes. So one of the themes that I have in the book is when I was interviewing these CEOs, I was trying to figure out what are the attributes that make up vulnerable leaders? It's not just enough just to be vulnerable, but what are some of the attributes that you need to have that kind of, come together to unlock the power of vulnerability?

And self-awareness was one of those, it was one of those traits. It was one of those attributes. And the story that I have in the book is about a businessman who goes to visit a zen master. And so the story goes that the businessman goes to this zen master. And the businessman was very successful, but he was struggling to find connection and meaning in his life.

And so he goes to visit this zen master, and the zen master tries to give some wisdom and guidance to the businessman. But the businessman keeps interrupting him. And he keeps talking over him, and he keeps making excuses for stuff. So after a few minutes, the Zen master goes and he gets a cup of tea, he gets a cup for himself.

He gets one for the businessman, and he starts pouring the tea for the businessman. And he starts pouring and pouring, and the cup fills. And eventually the cup overflows. And this businessman looks at the Zen master and he's Hey, what are you doing? Stop. The cup is full. And the zen master looks at him and says, Similarly, you are also two full of your own opinions and you want my help, but you have no room in your cup to receive my words.

And so this happens oftentimes, especially for leaders, is we don't open ourselves up to feedback. We don't understand how other people perceive us. And so self-awareness is a very critical component of being a vulnerable leader because you have to understand a how, you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, how you perceive yourself, but also how other people perceive you.

Do they understand what your strengths and weaknesses are? Do they understand what your challenges are? It's a very important part of this, and it's very hard to lead with vulnerability if you don't have self-awareness, because it essentially means that you don't have a window, you don't have a lens into how other people perceive you.

And if you don't have that, then. How are you going to know if you're even leading with vulnerability, if it's being perceived in the right way? So it's a very important component. 

[00:20:50] Mahan Tavakoli: What are some practices for leaders to be vulnerable enough and be able to solicit and get the kind of feedback that will help them in leadership?

[00:21:02] Jacob Morgan: So asking for feedback is a sign of vulnerability. A type of vulnerabilities is when you ask for help, you ask for feedback. And this is important because we live in a world now where you have to acknowledge that you're not perfect, that you don't know everything, that you don't have all the answers.

And inherent in that means that you have to accept that you are vulnerable. That's just the nature of how things go. And part of me feels like a lot of leaders are still having a hard time accepting and embracing that concept that they don't know everything, that they do have challenges.

They do have struggles. Similarly from the CEOs that you've been talking to I hear this a lot from CEOs as well, but they are unsure how to approach it in the right way. How do you lead with vulnerability? How do you approach it in the right way? The first thing that a lot of these leaders do is they understand and they embrace the concept of the vulnerable leader equation. They know that you have to bring these two things together. So vulnerability plus competence.

 So in the framework, I have something called the vulnerability wheel, and it's got five components to it. But at the very center of this is intention. And so the way that this wheel works is it's meant to be either a mental framework or a checklist or something that even leaders can, fully write out and expand upon.

That helps you decide how to approach vulnerability in the right way, when you should do it, how you should do it, et cetera. And at the very center of this wheel is intention. And intention basically means why are you doing or sharing or, talking about the things that you're talking about, what's the purpose behind it?

So you show up to work, for example, and you talk about a difficult relationship that you have with your dad. You show up to work and you're talking about a mistake or a failure or whatnot. The thing that a lot of these leaders do successfully is they know why they're doing it. They have a very clear business purpose in mind for why it is that they're sharing or doing whatever it is that they're doing.

If it's talking about something personal, they know they're doing this because they want to create connection and trust with their people. If they are talking about a mistake or a failure, they're doing this because they want to encourage their employees to do that as well, to drive innovation. So intention is very crucial because if you don't have the intention, then all of a sudden what starts to happen is your organization becomes like a big therapy session and you can't just show up to work and talk about your deep, dark secrets and failures and traumas and all that because it's a very different dynamic.

So the most important thing that I think these leaders do well is they know why they're doing it. The intention is crucial. I interviewed a couple of researchers in game theory psychologists, theoreticians one of them was Simkin. And Simkin is, considered one of the world's leading experts on trust.

And we had a conversation about this and I was asking him this same question. And so what starts to happen? If you are a leader inside of an organization, one of the things that you need to acknowledge is that your people are already vulnerable to you just from a position perspective, because you can fire them, 

you can make their life hell at work if you want to. So they are already vulnerable to you. And the big challenge that we see inside of organizations is that leaders believe that because they are in that leadership position, everybody needs to trust them. Everybody needs to be loyal to them, but leaders don't need to reciprocate it because they're the ones in the position of power.

So what happens is that when you as a leader are vulnerable with your people, it levels the playing field, so right now, think of it like a seesaw, where one end is much higher and the other end is lower. The higher end is where the leader sits. The playing field is not level because everybody's vulnerable to the leader because of the position that they're in.

Everybody has to trust the leader because of the position that they're in, and the leader doesn't have to reciprocate and do anything back down to their employees. When you are vulnerable, you level out the seesaw, you level the playing field. What happens when you level the playing field, when you level the playing field, it tells your employees that you are an equal footing.

They can come to you with their mistakes, they can come to you with challenges. They can come to you with struggles. You can create a culture of learning development and growth. You can lead through change. You can identify opportunities, you can come up with new ideas. When the playing field is not level, there's no incentive for your employees to do that because if they come to you with something, you can fire them.

Why are they gonna come to you talking about a mistake or a challenge when you can turn around and say, Hey, you know what? You screwed up. You're outta here. , if the playing field is level, they know that you will not do that. And all of a sudden you have that two-way dialogue, that two-way relationship.

Or you can lead with vulnerability. So I think that's another important thing, is that these leaders understand the value and the importance of leveling the playing field so that these types of things can happen. 

[00:26:07] Mahan Tavakoli:  Love that Jacob. That leveling of playing field also plays a critical role in being able to get honest feedback from the people around you. . This is the kind of vulnerability that levels the playing field and enables people both to be their authentic selves and yeah. Share with the leader opportunities for improvement, but also be more willing to give feedback.

One other point you mentioned that I wanted to underline is the intentionality with respect to the vulnerability I've I studied and I love how Nadella has led Microsoft and the stories he tells where he is genuinely sharing authentic stories where he's being vulnerable. But those are all with a.

Specific intention. For example, he wants to promote empathy and connection whether within Microsoft or with their clients. Yeah. So the story he uses to be vulnerable connects with that empathy. It's not just a story about a struggle he had with his spouse or whatever else the case might be to be vulnerable.

Yeah. There is intentionality 

[00:27:15] Jacob Morgan: behind it. Yeah. And he was even very public about it, he said, I wanna move our organization from a know-it-all culture to a learn it all culture, like it is the umbrella of what is happening at Microsoft. So he's a very good example of doing this because he's leading with vulnerability on the grandest scale.

So much so that it has now become language inside the organization. It's become a part of the brand of the organization to become a learn at all culture. And one other thing that I wanted to mention, going back to your previous point I realized I forgot to address this, is a lot of these leaders also understand three truths.

There are three very fundamental truths of vulnerable leaders of what it means to lead with vulnerability. The first is that these leaders understand that leading from a place of connection and influence is more powerful than leading from a place of fear and compliance. Leading from a place of fear and compliance is really good for getting people to check things off of a to-do list.

But connection and influence is ultimately what changes the world. So a lot of these leaders for their businesses, they're trying to change the world. They're trying to grow. They're trying to move beyond just checking things off of a to-do list. They're trying to move beyond compliance, so that's the first truth.

They understand that leading from a place of connection is more powerful than leading from a place of fear. 

[00:28:36] Mahan Tavakoli: Before you get to the second one, I agree with you, however, I do want to raise something and get your thoughts and perspectives on it. Sure.

Whether it's the Elon Musks of the world, or Steve Jobs of the World, people come up and have countless examples of these outlier, brilliant entrepreneurs that don't live that way and don't behave that way. So the question is, are those things that the Jacobs and the Mohans and the authors of the world really wants?

Or is it the reality of the most successful organizational CEOs and leaders? 

[00:29:12] Jacob Morgan: Yes. Good question. All right, let, so let me finish these two truths and then I'll get to that point. 'cause it builds on this. So the second truth is that the opposite of being vulnerable is not invulnerable.

That's what a lot of people think. They think, if I'm not gonna be vulnerable and I'm not gonna lead with vulnerability, I'll be invulnerable. I'll be impenetrable, I'll be this tank. But that's not true. The opposite of being vulnerable is not invulnerable, it's stagnation and eventual decline. The reason for that is because you cannot learn and grow without vulnerability.

So if you say, I'm not gonna be vulnerable, really what you're saying is that as the world around you changes, you're gonna stay the same. And as you stay the same and the world around you changes, what starts to happen is you gradually decline, you become a worse version of yourself, you become a worse leader.

So you're not invulnerable, you're actually causing damage to yourself and declining. And I think the third truth that a lot of these leaders understand and embrace is that the combination of leadership and vulnerability is what's ultimately going to transform you, your team, and your organization. So those are the three truths that I think a lot of these leaders embrace.

Now, going back to your other point is you mentioned people like Steve Jobs, you mentioned people like Elon Musk and basically the question becomes, well, they're not vulnerable, so why should I be? And there are a couple ways to look at that. So one is, I would argue that Elon Musk is actually quite a vulnerable c e o.

He shares a lot of things. If you follow his Twitter account, he shares opinions and views and things about himself that very few other people would. Now, again, I don't know Elon Musk. So I can't really comment on his specific leadership style, but I think you can certainly make the argument for somebody like Elon Musk that he is vulnerable.

He's one of the most public CEOs out there. He shares a lot of stuff about himself. Now, let's say you take the flip side of that argument and you say, you know what, Jacob, I don't agree with you. Elon Musk is a robot. Jack Welsh is not vulnerable. Steve Jobs is not vulnerable. Why should I be?

Fair enough. So to answer that question one of the stories that I have in the book is from the Edith Checker Spot Butterfly. Now stay with me on this one. I know a lot of people are gonna be like, why are you talking about a butterfly? A couple years ago in Nevada, Nevada used to be home to this species of butterfly called the Edith Checker Spot Butterfly.

And they flourished there for many years. And one day humans came in and they brought their cattle with them. And eventually what started to happen as the cattle came in, they also brought a new invasive species of grass with them called rib wart plantain. Now the butterfly, they relied on this blue-eyed Mary that was the name of the plant.

They relied on this blue-eyed Mary for everything, for food, for laying eggs, for their survival. And when humans came in with cattle, this invasive species of grass, rib plantain took over the blue-eyed Mary. And so what started to happen, and this was over time, this was over a long period of time, the butterflies had to adapt.

They had to adapt from the blue-eyed Mary to rib plantain as relying on that as their new source of food, as where they're laying eggs of making that their home, which they did. And then all of a sudden, very quickly, the humans left. Suddenly they took their cattle with them, everybody disappeared.

And what started to happen is the rib wart plantain, this invasive species of grass died off. Now the butterflies already became so used to and adapted to the river plantain that they couldn't go back to the blue-eyed Mary because the sudden change happened. And so all these butterflies died off. Now the story has a happy ending where, many years later, butterflies from other fields came and repopulated the area.

So this is a theory in psychology known as mismatch theory. Which basically states that attributes, qualities, behaviors, that were once beneficial to you are now detrimental to you because of a sudden change in your environment. Now you can look back over the past few decades and you can remember a time when Fortune magazine used to publish the world's toughest boss.

You can remember a time when it was a badge of honor to work for somebody like Jack Welsh or Steve Bomber commanding control, the hierarchy, the screaming, the yelling. This was not just accepted inside of our organizations. It was commonplace. And you can argue that this was actually beneficial.

This is how business was done. This is how business was done everywhere. What started to happen, and this is very suddenly over the last 10, 15, 20 years, our environment changed and it especially changed as a result of the pandemic. So things changed very quickly. And so now leaders are forcing to ask themselves the same question.

Are we going to adapt? Change, or are we going to stick to our old ways of doing things, even as our environment is changing and are we going to risk going extinct? Now, of course, there's always gonna be some exceptions to the rule. There's always gonna be somebody like an Elon Musk. There's always gonna be somebody like a Jack Welsh or a Steve Jobs.

And while I don't know the inner workings of how they got to where they are, it's important to remember that they've built their businesses from the ground up over decades. First of all, for Elon Musk, he's not just the c e o of the company, he's the owner, right?

So it's a little bit of a different environment. But these are people who've been in the business world for decades and decades, steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jack Walsh, there are probably several others there that you can count on as well. So there are exceptions to every rule.

There are some anomalies, but again, These are not emerging leaders. These are people who have continued to rely on their old ways of leadership, their old ways of getting things done. And it will remain to be seen the impact that they will have. There's a lot of debate going on around what's going on at Twitter and if what Elon Musk is doing is a good thing or a bad thing, again, you can argue maybe that Elon is vulnerable, maybe he's not.

But I find it far more helpful when trying to decide the type of a leader that you wanna be. Not to look at maybe the one or two people that you can point out to, but to look at the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, the millions even who are doing a good job and being successful. Again, there's always gonna be an anomaly to every rule.

But look, you're talking about the world's richest man, a mega gazillionaire. So are you really going to compare your leadership style to somebody like Elon Musk? Probably doesn't make sense to do that, in my opinion. Couple of 

[00:35:55] Mahan Tavakoli: powerful points there, Jacob. One is that these are outlier entrepreneurs.

Not many of us, I could speak for myself, are as smart as they are in many instances, so they are not the ones for us to compare ourselves to. The other one that you're mentioning is that the environment has been changing and the environment has changed, which is actually one of the reasons leaders need to lead with more vulnerability for the environment we have now and will have in the future now, the other thing I wanted to get your thoughts on is the interplay between authenticity and vulnerability. What role does authenticity play in vulnerability? 

[00:36:36] Jacob Morgan: By the way, there's also an r o i to this, in addition to the a hundred interviews that I did with CEOs, we surveyed 14,000 employees. There's a genuine r o i in fact employees who work for organizations where leaders are always vulnerable when appropriate. In those organizations, the overall quality of leadership is perceived to be much higher than organizations where vulnerability is less accepted. Organizations where leaders lead with vulnerability, they do a much better job when it comes to innovation.

 The employees there are much more engaged, the employees there are more productive, there is a much higher level of trust. So we see very clear r o i in terms of leading with vulnerability, which again, is bringing together the competence piece and the vulnerability piece. And now going to your second question, . So authenticity is one of the eight attributes for vulnerable leaders, but authenticity and vulnerability is not the same thing. It is funny when you ask a lot of people, how do you think of vulnerability? A lot of them might say authenticity. But to your point, if you look at somebody like a Jack Welsh, if you look at somebody like a Steve Bomber, were they authentic?

Yeah. When they had their emotions, Jack Welsh would throw things across the desk. He would scream at you, he would curse at you. He was authentic as hell. You know exactly what was going on in Jack Walsh's mind. Same thing with Steve Bomber. He literally created a culture of the rank and yank, 

him and Jack Walsh very famous for that. Where you created an environment where people were competing against each other, backstabbing, each other. If you were at the lower, 10% of the organization, you automatically got fired. Very authentic way to lead. Like you knew Steve Bomber, you knew Jack Welsh.

Was that vulnerable? Was that leading with vulnerability? No. Authenticity is being that single version of you, I am who I am. So if I'm a jerk, I'm a jerk. But just because you are a jerk doesn't mean you are vulnerable. It doesn't mean that you are sharing anything or doing anything where you expose yourself to the potential of emotional harm while taking action to create a positive outcome.

So authenticity is an attribute of leading with vulnerability, but it is not the same thing as being a vulnerable leader. 

[00:38:52] Mahan Tavakoli:  That's well put. And there are lots of examples of leaders both in the business world and in the political world where you can be very authentic but lack that vulnerability that is essential, as you mentioned in leadership.

Now, I'd love to get your thoughts on cultural elements and diversity elements to leading with vulnerability. 

[00:39:13] Jacob Morgan: Yeah. So first of all from the a hundred CEOs that I interviewed, I think of them were female CEOs. We interviewed CEOs of companies around the world. These are not just US-based, so we looked at all sorts of geographies.

Same thing for the 14,000 employees that we surveyed. We looked at dozens of different geographies lots of different industries. So the results were pretty consistent across the board. And the distinction becomes leading with vulnerability. If you're purely just being vulnerable, then yes, I think there is gonna be very.

Clear distinction between if you are a minority, if you're a woman simply just saying, I made a mistake, or I need help. I think that can come across differently depending on where you come from. But what I found is that leading with the vulnerability, at least from the CEOs that I interviewed, is pretty consistent as a way to demonstrate that competence, the confidence the power dynamic that you have.

And this has been very consistent across the board. It's not just showing up to work and asking for help, but it's saying, Hey can you please help me with this? Here's what I'm gonna do to make sure I can figure it out. Here's what I'm gonna do to make sure that I can get this solved. So it's a very important element. And so going back to one of your themes around culture. One of the CEOs I interviewed was, Blanca Trevino, and she's the president and c e o of a company called SoftTech. It's one of the largest technology information services company actually based in Latin America.

I think they have around 15,000 employees. And she told me this story of how they were opening an office in another part of the world she was having lunch with some of her coworkers. And as she was having lunch with some of her coworkers, she was walking back from her team lunch and she saw that a group of employees were being yelled at by the manager of the company.

And it was a different language, so she didn't actually understand what was being said, but she looked at that, and this was a company that Blanca just acquired. So she just acquired this company. She was there talking to some employees. She just finished a team lunch. She's walking out of the cafeteria area and she sees a group of employees being yelled at by the owner of the company.

She doesn't know what's being said, but she goes over to the manager and she's Hey, I don't know what you're saying, but I don't like the way that you're saying it. And Owner of the company looked at her and said this is how you have to treat your people, because if you don't, they're gonna lose respect for you.

And if you don't do that, you're gonna lose all your money in this acquisition and it's all gonna be a waste of time. And Blanca looks at this manager and she says, what does it say on the wall over there? And he looks at the one and he says, oh, it says soft tech. And she's that's right. It says Soft Tech.

It's my company. And in my company we don't treat people like that. And sure enough, several years later the company is now very profitable. Very successful. And that division, that branch is doing quite well. So the whole concept of this goes to that you don't necessarily need to speak the language.

You don't necessarily need to understand everything that's going on, when somebody's vulnerable, you can tell regardless, you can look at body language, you can tell by their tone. You can tell, obviously, if you do understand the language, there's this kind of, this human connection that we have with each other when we can tell when somebody's vulnerable, when somebody's not, when somebody's trying to connect with you, when somebody's not, when somebody's being authentic, when somebody is not, regardless of if you understand the language or not.

So really what this taught me is that leading with vulnerabilities is very consistent across the board. Whether you go to a place like China, whether you go to a place like Latin America, whether you go to the United States, the uk. Now of course, are there gonna be some differences as far as comfort levels?

Yes. But is it true that regardless of where you go leading with vulnerability can still be a powerful thing for you to use? That has been consistent across the board from all of the CEOs that I interviewed. Now, again, I don't wanna make it sound like it's identical everywhere you go, but the impact will be the same everywhere you go.

[00:43:01] Mahan Tavakoli:  That's a beautiful perspective because that humanity is the same wherever you go. Yes. And needs are the same wherever you go. So I would love to know your thoughts, Jacob. You have great stories in the book, A lot of frameworks and ways of thinking about how to lead with vulnerability.

And I love the marriage of those two words together and the research that you have done with hundreds of CEOs all across the globe to write this book, what would be some practices you recommend for CEOs and leaders to get started on their journey of leading with vulnerability? 

[00:43:43] Jacob Morgan: So there's a framework that I have in the book.

It's called The Vulnerability Mountain the cover of the book is a mountain and it's somebody getting ready to ascend and climb this mountain. And that visual was very specifically picked because to me, when I think of leading with vulnerability, I think of climbing a mountain. You start off, it's relatively easy, but the higher up the mountain you go, the harder and harder it becomes. But at the same time, the higher up the mountain you go, the more visibility you get. The more clarity you get, the more other people you will meet as you are on this journey, as they're on this journey with you as well.

So the image of the mountain, I think is very relevant. So what I encourage everybody to do is to build their own vulnerability mountain. And what that means is that if you think of a mountain, specifically the vulnerability mountain, it's easy to pick the bottom. It's easy to pick the top. The bottom is that if you had to lead with vulnerability right now or tomorrow, what's something that you could do?

For example, it could be something very basic. As a way to get to know people. Here's what I did over the weekend. Tell me a little bit about what you did as a way to create rapport, 

again, the intention there is important. I wanna create rapport. I wanna create better relationships with my team members. I wanna get to know them as human beings. Therefore, I'm going to talk a little bit about what I did outside of work. So that's something anybody could do tomorrow, here's what I did over the weekend.

 What did you do over the weekend? How was your weekend? So that could be something that you could do tomorrow. Maybe one level up from that is genuinely praising somebody on your team, like genuinely going up to somebody on your team and giving them a compliment and showing them that you appreciate them.

That too. Is an act of vulnerability. Maybe one level up from that is you ask for help on something small, and again, you can see how you start to ascend this mountain. Maybe at the very high end of that mountain is sharing a personal challenge or struggle. So what I encourage leaders to do is you start at the bottom and you start at the peak, and you gradually take those steps to get to the top of the mountain.

Now, as you climb this mountain, you're gonna make mistakes. Somebody might use something against you, you might. Be vulnerable and have it not connect with somebody in the right way. You might have all sorts of challenges and problems with it. It's not meant to be like, this is a straight shot going up the mountain.

Anybody who's ever gone on any kind of a hike or exploration or adventure knows that sometimes you might get a little bruised, sometimes you might get beat up. Sometimes you might take a path that leads to a dead end and you have to come back down and go around the other side. But the point is to understand where your comfort level is tomorrow and what's something that you are aspiring to get to.

And I can read a quote with you. So one of the people that I interviewed, speaking of Microsoft, is a Deb Cup and she is the president of Microsoft North America. And I actually shared this framework with her and she gave me this really great quote, so this is specifically about the mountain.

And I love the way that she talked about this, and she said, when conditions get tougher and the mountain gets steeper, it's all about putting one foot in front of the other and putting in the work and focusing on what you can control. Being vulnerable can be challenging, but the r o i of being a vulnerable leader is incredibly high.

And when you're vulnerable, it makes people feel like they can better connect to you as a person, and it encourages them to show up as themselves at work. And this creates a better environment for the team and for the business as a whole. And she says, climbing the mountain is an ongoing journey filled with plenty of bumps and bruises along the way.

It's a journey that every good leader signs up for when they agree to be responsible for others. It's hard work. You, your team and your organization deserve it. And that's one of my favorite quotes from the book speaking about that mountain. It is hard, it is challenging, but your people deserve it and you deserve it to be the best leader that you can be.

That is a 

[00:47:30] Mahan Tavakoli: beautiful quote. I love the perspective of both the impact that it has. And one of the things I realized as I was reading your book Jacob, is that leading with vulnerability helps us, in my view, also overcome some of the imposter syndrome that we might have as leaders. Would love to get some of your thoughts on that as well, because one of the challenges that I've seen with leaders who have lacked the ability to be vulnerable and lead with vulnerability is that imposter syndrome that many of us have some more so and some less the ability to be able to overcome that.

[00:48:13] Jacob Morgan: I had a couple stories in the book of CEOs who had imposter syndrome. One of them was from Barbara Hump. She's the c e O of Siemens in the United States. And she actually shared this story with me. She was working, I believe at I B M at the time, and they were doing a project for Lockheed Martin she remembers that she gets a phone call and she gets asked to be this new project manager for Lockheed Martin, 

she's working at I B M. And they say, we want you to be the new kind of I B M integration project manager for Lockheed Martin. And so this was a really good opportunity for her, but, the project was going through some tough times and she was being put into this role. So she accepted the assignment knowing that it was gonna be tough.

And she remembers walking into this meeting with a lot of leaders and some of her peers, and that everybody looks at her like, Who is this person? Who is she to guide us out of this mess that we're in? When all those stares locked in on her sometimes you don't need to say that you're doubting somebody.

You could just tell by the way they look at you that they just don't have confidence in you. And she had this vibe from everybody in the room, all these leaders. And some people came up to her, they made some kind of comments and basically said you're the new person.

The last new person that we had has been here for 19 years, basically saying everybody who's been on this team has been here for a long time. You're the new project manager. You're here on day one. Good freaking luck. You're not gonna be able to do anything. And so she told me at that moment she did feel that imposter syndrome coming up and she said she had a choice.

She could have gained control over the situation by asserting her dominance, by basically being like, Hey, you know what? I'm the leader. Shut up. Whatever I say is gonna happen, you're gonna do whatever I tell you. And instead what she did is she. Spoke to that team and she acknowledged that this was a difficult assignment.

She acknowledged that she didn't have all of the answers. And even though that she was the most senior person in the room, she told everybody that she was there to learn from them. And she told everybody what she wanted to work on. She told everybody that she's going to try hard to gain everybody's credibility.

And that completely turned the vibe around in the room. She said that she was able to build relationships with all of the influencers in that room one by one that would help the team as a whole succeed. And she was able to turn that entire project around. I love that story because it goes to show that even if you feel imposter syndrome, you have a choice of how you act.

 And everybody's felt imposter syndrome. I felt imposter syndrome early on in my career. Everybody has gone through that imposter syndrome. I think ultimately what matters most is how you approach it, and you can have imposter syndrome and still lead with vulnerability. I remember another c e o shared a story with me that she was also put into a very similar spot.

She wasn't able to turn the project around, and so she went to her then c e o at the time and said, I don't think I'm the right person for this role. I've tried doing a lot of different things. I've tried my best. I'm not able to turn things around. And she was vulnerable with the c e O at the time.

And the c e o said, yeah, I know you're gonna have a hard time. That's why I put you in this role. I put you in this role to push you. I put you in this role because I wanted somebody who had new ideas and a different way of thinking. And that conversation alone allowed Lara Abra is her name. It allowed her to succeed in the organization.

She's now the chair of Deloitte US responsible for 170,000 employees, the largest professional services firm in the world. So imposter syndrome it's something that can be used as a positive if you can actually. Do something with it , what's the action that you're gonna take?

And I think leading with vulnerability is a very powerful action that you can take when you do feel that imposter syndrome. 

[00:52:03] Mahan Tavakoli: And  that goes to the title of your book because leading with vulnerability helps you to transform yourself, which is an essential part of it. Then your team and your organization as you go up that mountain.

Yeah. 

[00:52:18] Jacob Morgan: The positive self-talk makes all the difference. Even when you have imposter syndrome, it's how you talk to yourself, it's how you view yourself. And oftentimes if you focus on the competence aspect, being good at your job, it will help with imposter syndrome, a lot of people, always ask me, well, why do you interview so many CEOs?

Why do you collect all this data? In a way it helps me from feeling imposter syndrome because I'm not just sharing opinion, I'm sharing data. I'm sharing fact. I have the backing of a hundred CEOs and 14,000 employees so that I know if I'm giving a talk, if I'm delivering a workshop, if I'm talking to a C E O, I have all of this support behind me.

Similarly, if you focus on being good at your job, If you do feel that sense of imposter syndrome, you can rely on the fact that you have that competence as a shield that can help you move forward. And I think that's a very powerful thing to recognize and a very powerful thing to tell 

[00:53:10] Mahan Tavakoli: yourself.

It is, and I really appreciate all the effort that you have put into both the research of it. As I've seen over the years, Jacob, that vulnerability and leading with vulnerability is important. But you have put it in frameworks with examples and research that can help leaders understand how they can transform themselves, their teams, and organizations.

How can the audience find out more about your book Leading with Vulnerability and connect with you, 

[00:53:43] Jacob Morgan: Jacob? Yeah, thank you for asking. So we created a U R L for the book that's now live. It's lead with vulnerability.com. So lead with vulnerability.com. We also did some pretty cool things. So for people who order a hardcover copy of the book, pre-order, a hardcover copy, I should say.

We're gonna give away a couple bonuses and one of the bonuses is I'll share a couple of these exclusive interviews with the CEOs of American Airlines and GE and Edward Jones. We'll share that with people. I'm also gonna give people a couple chapters of the book ahead of the book launch so they'll be able to see some of the content before everybody else.

And I'm gonna be hosting a pretty exciting webinar, sharing some of the concepts and ideas again before the book launch. So that's lead with vulnerability.com. My website is the future organization.com and my email for anybody that might wanna connect with me or ask me any questions is jacob@thefutureorganization.com.

[00:54:38] Mahan Tavakoli: I really appreciate that Jacob, and the effort you've put into both researching and writing this book as well as the other outstanding work that you've done.

Thank you so much for this conversation, Jacob Morgan. 

[00:54:51] Jacob Morgan: Oh, thank you for having me. I'm very grateful for the opportunity and I hope we get to stay in touch.