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If you’re a Chief Human Resources or Chief People Officer, then you can request to join a brand new community I put together called Future Of Work Leaders which focuses on the future of work and employee experience. Join leaders from Tractor Supply, Johnson & Johnson, Lego, Dow, Northrop Grumman and many others. We come together virtually each month and once a year in-person to tackle big themes that go beyond traditional HR.
Hello Leaders!
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about a CEO who was vulnerable at work and had it backfire, you can check out that post here:
Today, I want to go over what you should do if when you are vulnerable at work and it backfires…because it will happen. It’s happened to many of the CEOs I interviewed in my book, Leading With Vulnerability, and it has happened to most of the people I surveyed in both formal and informal polls.
Remember, vulnerability is about doing or saying something at work that can potentially be used against you. It’s essentially exposing a gap that you have.
Let’s say you confide in someone who uses the information to insult you, make you feel small, or use it as a way to hurt you or your career. At this point you have a choice.
You can either use this as a reason to justify why you should never be vulnerable with anyone at work ever again, this is called a fixed moment (not a good approach, especially for leaders), or, you can do something else, which I’ll explore below.
In my book, Leading With Vulnerability, I talk about a few different types of moments that can occur when you’re vulnerable and I’ll do a separate breakdown of what those three are. For the purpose of this post I want to focus on fixed vs learning moments.
As I mentioned above, a fixed moment is when you decide that a negative experience should keep you from ever being vulnerable with anyone again. It’s a fixed moment because it keeps you in your present state, unable to grow, develop, or progress. This is a career killer!
The most effective thing you can do is to turn that experience into a learning moment. If you recall from the story I shared a few weeks ago, the CEO was very vulnerable at work and had it used against her in a toxic way. Eventually she left the company and went on to lead a massive telecommunications company.
She took her experience and turned it into a learning moment.
This was a powerful learning moment for me. I learned that as you go into new environments, teams, and organizations, you have to really understand who you are going to be working with. You have to understand the values of the people you are going to be working with, the values of the company, and the culture that exists. Do your due diligence. I realized that I only want to align myself with people and companies that have a purpose, values, and culture, that align with my approach to life which is to be open, honest, transparent, and willing to be vulnerable.
A learning moment is the point at which you acknowledge that things didn’t go the right way for you and you have to take stock of what you learned about yourself, the situation, and the other person. Acknowledging and actually telling yourself, “this is a learning moment” will help those negative feelings and emotions turn positive.
You have to ask yourself, “what I did learn and how can I apply what I learned in my career and life?”
Even though learning-moments can sometimes be painful they are powerful vehicles for growth.
These learning-moments don’t always have to revolve around negative things although they typically are. They can also be positive. For example, genuinely recognizing people and showing appreciation can be a vulnerable experience, but if you see that it connects with people in a positive way, then that learning moment will be how you recognize people in future situations.
Learning-moments are conscious moments that you control. You have the power and the choice to say to yourself, “this is a learning moment, what did I learn and what will I do as a result now and in the future?”
Nothing in life is a guarantee so why should vulnerability be any different? Being vulnerable is an act of trust, it doesn’t mean you will never be betrayed, but it won’t happen nearly as often as you think. If vulnerability is ever used against you, it’s a sign you shouldn’t be working for that team or leader to begin with.
Guy Meldrum is the former President & Chief Executive Officer at Reynolds American Inc. with almost 4,000 employees. He’s a big believer in leading with learning moments.
He shared the following with me:
“You’re not perfect and you’re not going to get vulnerability right every time. You have to recognize employees have their own opinions and as a leader you need to respect them. When things don’t go the right way you have a choice, you can let those situations cripple you or you can learn from them. When you focus on learning-moments you give yourself permission to keep being vulnerable and create a safe environment for those around you to do the same.”
Learning moments are where growth, innovation, and development come from. You DECIDE to have learning moments or fixed moments so the next time you are vulnerable at work and it doesn’t go the way you want, ask yourself what you can learn and how you can adapt in the future.
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If you’re a Chief Human Resources or Chief People Officer, then you can request to join a brand new community I put together called Future Of Work Leaders which focuses on the future of work and employee experience. Join leaders from Tractor Supply, Johnson & Johnson, Lego, Dow, Northrop Grumman and many others. We come together virtually each month and once a year in-person to tackle big themes that go beyond traditional HR.
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