Ep 416: Can you show vulnerability without losing composure?

but also showing composure. And she said that the reason why this is coming up right now is that she works for an organization where there's there are a lot of changes happening and a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unknowns, and that's creating some anxiety in a lot of the employees. And even from the leadership standpoint, there are there are there's information that not even the leaders have a lot of a lot of unknowns there, and so it's difficult to answer the questions.

have in the leadership team. And I thought it's a great question, because you know, there there is that fine line between you know, how do you you know, we talked about it on a recent episode about you know, leadership is the ability to hide your panic from others, and you know, you can you can be very transparent that you feel like things are out of control and that you have no confidence and what's going on and no information, and that's very vulnerable, but it's also not

going to do wonders for the level of confidence your team has in you.

somewhat dangerous. I think in the idea of how people will look to you as the leader, I think that you can absolutely and I've been in that position before where it's like, look, we don't have all the answers. There's a lot that's going on. There's changes that are happening, right. We all know that, and we all feel the emotion

of these things as we work through them. And I can even share with you maybe a time in my career or my life where I've been through something like this before and kind of here's what I focused on, here's what I did, here's what I believed, and here's the best thing that we can do right now for one another and for the work that we have in front of us, right being conscious not to over promise, not to be like everything's gonna be okay, right, because

that's a very subjective opinion on what's okay to you versus what's okay to me. How do I feel about it? Did I get impacted? Did you get impacted? Did we all get impacted? Like, if you know there's a lot of change, and think that's happening around us. It's okay to say that that's the facts of the current situation that we're all in right now, but it also.

And it may feel good to hear other people's thoughts or opinions or what they think could be done, should be done, what they're considering. That can be very helpful in those types of times in.

it to. And and the longer you're in the workforce and the more roles you have, and you know, maybe the number of times that you've gone through reorganization of a company that you're with, maybe you've been laid off before, maybe you whatever it was that led you to where you are right now, the breadth and depth of experience that you have in weathering these storms tends to give you the the the grit and the kind of inner confidence to just understand that that things will work out,

and and and and things working out doesn't mean that you know how they're going to work out. Things working out doesn't mean that you know what's going to happen. Things working out just means that you know, even though I don't know how things are going to go, I'm confident that however it goes, I have the skills necessary to whether this storm. Meaning my resume is up to date, my network is strong, I've I've talked to people who at other organizations, and I have a safe place to

land if necessary. It's the the way you've it's it's no different than you know you used to live in Florida, and sometimes there's hurricanes in Florida and you know, you may not know whether the hurricane is going to be a category three or four or five when it, you know,

hits land. But the level of confidence that a person has as you or your neighbors or the community is less rooted in Oh, we we know it's going to drop down to a category three or two because you don't know whether or not you have confidence that you'll get through it is whether or not you have hurricane proof windows or a go bag to get out of you know, get out of the area if you have to, that you have a plan in place for your loved ones and your pets and the and the things that

are important, and you know, the photo albums are already in the car, like you know. Those are the things that that let you have more confidence, not a kind of a blind hope that something is going to work out, you know.

in these times. As a leader, if you want to be vulnerable and kind of as the question is like composed to a degree, I think you have to be able to walk in there with confidence and say, let's talk about the reality of what's going on right now, and let's talk about the fact that, like many of you, I'm also feeling this right. This is how I'm feeling, this is what I'm seeing. You know, we don't all have the answers. We don't all know where this is going.

We we don't know what's the impact of the storm, right, but there is a storm and it's here and we're working through it. So let's talk through some of that, right, let's allow a space where we can talk through the work. Let's let's let's share maybe some of the things that

we're thinking. Let's know that we're going to do our best to work through this together, and then we're going to take this as it goes, and as the storm gets closer and closer and closer, right, then we'll be able to have more and more of these conversations to to to talk through and to work through the you know, the the issues and the situations that are happening around us.

And I think that, to me is how you balance that ability of being composed and vulnerable and transparent enough to be able to share the things that that you can share. And I think also sometimes in leadership, you know, you may you may know more than you're allowed to share, sure, and so like yeah, yes, so you have to also be conscious of that there's a responsibility there of having information that is not right for for everyone for a lot of different types of reasons. That doesn't take away

your ability to be vulnerable. It doesn't take away your ability. And I was, you know, I was in a conversation not too long ago where I had to say, like, actually, like I I do know the answer, but I'm not able to share it right now, right right, like I because I'm not gonna lie and say I don't know. But I also have a responsibility that I can't share. But I do know the answer, I can't share it right now, but know that as I'm able to do that,

we'll have conversations. I think it will make a lot more sense to you as we have that conversation and then as I'm able to share it with you the information that I have.

transparency is really important. But on the on the other side of it too, you know, if even if you have the confidence that something's gonna work out because you have information, I think it is it helps to speak to the person with the empathy of kind of putting yourself in their shoes with the information that they have, and I think you're a lot more likely to come off the right way. So you start with the transparency of yea, let's get let's get the let's get the.

for what you can do for me. My job as a leader is to help you whatever the next stage of your career is, even if it's not under me, or even in this organization as a whole, and so helping employees do the things they need to do to be able to land safely wherever it is.

for you in the moment. It's like, it's like when an organization is going to go out of business and they don't tell the employees that they're going out of business until an hour before closing time because they're worried about the employees stealing from them or not showing up

to work whatnot. It's like, no, it almost works out better if you are transparent with them and you tell them what's going on, and then you say, hey, for the people who stick around and help us get through the closing, this is what we're going to give you for helping us do this because we understand how difficult this is. That's the right way to do it, not hiding it from them and then hoping you know that

things are going to work out. There's going to keep you know, keep their head down and focus until you walk in at the last minute and lock the doors. Yeah.

they're worried about. From an emotional standpoint, there has to be a safe space where they can come to you and talk to you and be able to kind of air their emotions around the situation, which could be rooted in fear and anxiety, lack of knowledge of what's going on, and that while you have to be as transparent as you can, even even if it comes to saying I can't I can't tell you this thing, but i'll but I'll help you get through whatever it is together, go

through that process with them, have the empathy, let them kind of figure that out. But then also understand that the second tier is making sure they know that that decisions made from that standpoint will likely be less helpful to them in the long term. So whether that's you know, putting their head in the sand and just hoping things work out, or you know, leaving their organization preemptively without knowing whether or not their position is going to be impacted.

Neither of those are necessarily smart decisions. But the right thing to do is to say, let's figure out what we can do to make sure that this impacts you the least negatively regardless of what happens, and that could be helping somebody figure out who their strong network connections are, making sure that their resume is up to date, making sure that their LinkedIn profile is up to date, you know, offering, you know, being being well versed in whatever programs or

or benefits or perks the organization has to help with, you know, job placement if needed, or you know, Cobra health insurance if that's if that's possible, or whatever things there are that make this less of an impact on their life. Knowing about those things and how to communicate them in a way that lets the employee feel like, hey,

whatever happens, I have a plan. There might be four different plans because I don't know how this is going to go, but whatever whatever happens, I'm not reacting in the moment and hoping it goes well. I know what the next step is and I know how to move forward. That's how you maintain the confidence your people have in you as a leader while also showing that vulnerability to meet them where they are, you know, from the emotional and the anxiety standpoint.

Like if anytime there's a lot of changes happen happening, we're in this space and you have to accept number one, that you're in that space, and you have to create spaces to talk about the space that you're in and then even talk through and work through potential outcomes good

and bad. So like I like the fact that you kind of talked about like well, yeah, like like what if, like like let's talk about if all of this works out and nothing changes, and we're kind of like back to where we were, All right, what does that look like? What did we learn? What would we do for the future in cases was to happen again? Okay, now let's talk about if this goes the other way. This is not what it's always been. There are major changes here.

Things are going to happen, and there's the potential that people would have to do other work, you know, like like what are you doing to prepare yourself for that opportunity as well? Like it's important that we're ready for any types of changes that are happening constantly, to make sure that you're prepared for whatever might be down the road. And I think they just starting with that conversation, I think can be helpful at minimum to just work through the emotions of the change curve.

emotionally and practically for what's coming up up. Also, the potential fallout will impact one versus the other. You know far differently too, so knowing that that that spans you know different demographics and ages and experiences, and and you know what's on the resume. All those things matter for how an employee is going to interpret the potential outcomes. And if you try to project what you know because of your experience onto them, that's not going to go well.

You need to meet them where they are and understand that what they're going through is a product of their history and their resume, and you know the potential outcome or the fallout or what they're going to go through. And so if you meet them there as opposed to expecting them to be where you are, then you're far less likely to come off like you know something they don't know. And you're keeping it from them or like whatever changes are happening are going to impact them but

not you. But you also won't erode the relationship.