“Vulnerability means harnessing emotion.” ~ Mike Milano
Since the 1970s it has been generally believed that there are six basic human emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise. Recent, extensive studies have expanded that list to 27 distinct categories of emotion. These range from admiration, adoration, and amusement to sexual desire, surprise, sympathy, and triumph. On top of that, Brené Brown in her book Atlas of the Heart claims there are 87 different emotions, plus infinite possibilities because, at any given time, a person can experience a mix of emotions.
Negative and positive emotions
Whatever the ultimate number of human emotions is, most experts agree the mind tends to assign a negative or positive value to each one. Happiness is good. Fear is bad. Not surprisingly, showing negative emotions is often equated with exhibiting weakness or showing character flaws. We’ve grown up in a culture that doesn’t encourage emotional expression, especially when it’s deemed negative. As a result, showing these “negative” emotions often puts us in a vulnerable state.
Fear and uncertainty are the most common emotions that accompany vulnerability, but there are others. For example, when someone is feeling sad or guilty, they can feel exposed—weak or assailable. And when someone feels that way, they’re often reluctant to admit experiencing whatever emotion they have.
Leaders who aren’t afraid to show their vulnerability openly acknowledge the emotions they feel and give the people who work for them the freedom to do likewise. Emotional expression is a part of vulnerability and ought to be part of workplace culture, but leaders need to understand how emotions should be exhibited and handled at the workplace. Not only must they understand, they must model the behavior they seek.
Obviously, caveats and cautions are in order here. Some emotions, such as contempt, sexual desire, or disgust should clearly not be brought into the workplace. But, for the most part, both employees and leaders should be able to express their emotions and the accompanying moments of vulnerability, as long as they do so in a constructive manner.
Understanding guild and shame
What do I mean by “constructive”? Let’s talk about guilt and shame, both of which we have all experienced in our lives. Unfortunately, the two words are often used interchangeably, but as Brené Brown points out, the two are not the same at all. She writes “What’s interesting is guilt gets a bad rap, but guilt is a very socially adaptive emotion. Guilt is ‘I did something bad,’ and shame is ‘I am that.’” Shame labels a person as bad, unworthy, and unlovable. This emotion is not about whatever happened, but the people themselves who were involved. It creates blame and contempt, and leaves no opening for resolving what happened. On the other hand, people feeling guilty admit they did something wrong and take steps to make amends.
As a leader, it is highly likely that you’ll do something or make a decision you regret—some that end badly or hurt other people. You’ll be in the very vulnerable position of having to acknowledge you are the person responsible for the mistake. Likely, you will feel guilt or shame in that situation, one of which will be constructive and the other not.
For example, let’s say you decide to move onto the next phase of a large project before fully assessing all of the data available and failing to collaborate to the degree you should. You just “feel it.” You know “in your gut” it’s the right move, despite cautions from some on your team. So, your organization goes into the next phase not fully prepared, setbacks occur, regression to the previous phase is necessary, and more time is wasted than if you’d done your due diligence before pulling the trigger to move on. Feeling guilty, you gather your team, talk about what happened, you take accountability, and you put procedures in place to ensure all are on board before moving on, etc. That’s constructive—you admit you were wrong, you share that with your team, and, critically, you all learn from it so it won’t happen again.
In this same scenario, shame might occur when you’re honest with yourself about your true motivations for deciding to move to the next phase—for example, if you and several other like organizations are on a similar path forward but in a desire to stand out, to impress your boss, to be in the spotlight, you make the decision to go forward for your own personal gain, a larger bonus, or whatever. In this case, that’s a lot tougher to share with others, and so you’ll likely keep it bottled up. But that shame will persist. This is not constructive, but destructive—why? Because no learning will have occurred as result.
Shame can be shifted into guilt, but only if one is vulnerable, comes clean, is true to themselves and others, takes accountability, and thereby puts themselves in a position to improve going forward, to learn and grow.
Emotional expression, especially in the workplace, requires boundaries and appropriateness, but it should not be suppressed or demeaned. We are human, after all. Leaders need to show the way and again, model the behavior they seek.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on fear and vulnerability in leadership. Please feel free to send me your thoughts here or email me directly at james.m.milano@gmail.com.