Hiding Weakness
Me too.
Honestly, it took me ages to realize how much I avoid it. How many decades I tried to bypass and ignore my weaknesses and insecurities. Camouflage or hide them by doubling down on what I was good at. Performing in ways that the “polished me” showed up, rather than the wilder version. A narrow view- like the photo above. I put on the smile. Lead with confidence in male dominated boardrooms. Brief my way into national tables- honing my capacity to connect, lead and strategize. Master all the ways I “should” behave in order to influence and belong. I was really good at what I did.
Until.
Until.
Until….
I realized that my view was too narrow. The scope too tight. That I’d cut off parts of myself to make a wager with conventional success. That I hadn’t given much time and attention to my blind-spots and shadows. That I assumed making mistakes was a sign of weakness. I listened carefully when my first woman mentor told me to “never let them see you sweat”. And so, accompanied by a harsh inner critic- I rarely did. I didn’t believe that failing could mean something other than being a shitty leader. That they could, instead, become a portal to possibility.
Vulnerability-Curious?
I’m thinking about this a lot this week because EVERYONE secretly loves this topic- but doesn’t talk about it. (Except the more emotionally evolved Millennial generation and the Esther Perels of the world).In the last few years, I’ve come to love this topic- and the gaggle of philosophers, eco-feminists, artists and entrepreneurs who embrace the emancipation of incorrectness. As a Gen X’er, who still wants to be a straight A student in everything she does, I’ve been vulnerability-curious ever since Brené Brown’s TedTalk. Not in a shallow kind of way but in a-fuller-version-of-myself kind of way.
You?
To add to the cultural mix, Canadians (allow me to generalize) are not great at failure. We’ve got the posters and workshops on “innovation” but mostly tiptoe around sucking, failing and fucking up. Most workplaces don’t have robust cultures, structures and rituals for celebrating failure. But I’m proud to say my town is choosing otherwise. This week I’m speaking about a personal failure at a sold-out event with other brave humans. While I’m game- I’m terrified.
Admit you’re failing
Humans do this really common thing for much of our lives. We invest an enormous amount of energy to reveal the shiniest version of ourselves. Or we complain, critique and blame others. But rarely (save for the last question in a job interview) do we let on about how scared we are to fail. Where and how we’ve failed. Or how, failure might gesture towards a world of possibility instead of a world of paralysis.
I wish I’d had this kind of encouragement a decade ago. At a time where I feel like I failed as a leader. When I didn’t make things better for my team but worse. While the sting has subsided, I can still taste the disappointment. The flailing to urgently repair the fraying edges of a well-connected team. My inability to stay with the discomfort that came with tension and conflict. My rush to try and fix things, while often misreading the room. It’s so embarrassing to admit this. How cautious and guarded I became. How well I played the “good bureaucrat”. Instead of being candid, curious and undefended- I relied on things I didn’t love: organizational policies, rules and external people that tried to find the root or pin blame. Some of it helped. Most of it didn’t. Despite deep care, I couldn’t see, nor give compassion to, the weaknesses I hadn’t fully owned or integrated yet.
The Upside of Vulnerability
As painful as this time was, both myself (and the team) did some courageous reckoning, growing and healing. I am grateful for my team-mates. My team taught me to be more vulnerable. I allowed myself to cry, feel anger and express fear without shame. I trusted the mess more and our collective capacity to solve challenges ourselves. I began to see the limits of investing in a professional identity that equated success with being “good”, “smart” or “nice”. Maybe, I became a bit more bad-ass in the process. I finally got the courage to dance on my desk, at least one Friday afternoon.
This period of fumbling and failing wasn’t a death sentence for my career. It brought me more alive. It softened me. This failure grew a wider emotional range and careful attention to what’s out of view. I learned that failure is a portal. Mistake making is human. And staying in the discomfort of it all brings relational intimacy. Despite the pain of failure, I’ll take this version of realness over “polished professionalism” any day.
So however you relate to failure, I hope you know it can be a doorway to greater becoming. An invitation to risk new shapes (as Sophie Strand says) as we embrace the evolutionary possibility of mistake making. I want THIS to become the norm. THIS to be the advice young leaders get.
Because through failure we get a wilder version of ourselves and desks made for dancing.
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