Leading With Vulnerability: Using Vulnerability Effectively for Leaders with Jacob Morgan
Jacob Morgan - Author of ‘Leading with Vulnerability’, Futurist, Consultant and TED speaker
Jacob is a professionally trained futurist, keynote speaker, and the international best-selling author of 5 books which focus on leadership, the future of work, and employee experience. His passion and mission is to create great leaders, engaged employees, and future-ready organizations.
Jacob is also the host of Leading The Future of Work which is one of the world’s most popular leadership podcasts. His work has been endorsed by the CEOs of: Unilever, Cisco, Mastercard, Nestle, Best Buy, SAP, KPMG, T-Mobile, Audi, Kaiser Permanente, and many others. Jacob has also contributed to and been cited in publications such as Cosmopolitan, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNN, Glamour, the MIT Sloan Management Review, USA Today, and The Harvard Business Review.
There’s no denying that vulnerability has been a buzzword in leadership for some time now. But what exactly does vulnerability look like in the workplace, and how do we use it effectively in leadership?
In today’s conversation we explore the concept of with vulnerability with Jacob Morgan author of Leading with Vulnerability. He details how leaders can effectively use vulnerability to connect, motivate and engage teams.
Jacob Morgan is a trained futurist and one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership, the future of work, and employee experience, He speaks in front of tens of thousands of people each year and his content is seen over a million times a year. Jacob is the best-selling author of five books: Leading With Vulnerability (Wiley 2024), The Future Leader (Wiley 2020) The Employee Experience Advantage (Wiley, 2017), The Future of Work (Wiley, 2014), and The Collaborative Organization (McGraw Hill, 2012). He speaks at over 50 conferences a year including TED Academy which is one of the largest TED events in the world. In addition Jacob provides advisory and thought leadership services to various organizations around the world.
Read our full article on The Truth About Leading with Vulnerability with Leaders from our conversation with Jacob Morgan right here.
To learn more about Jacob Morgan, and get a copy of Leading with Vulnerability here:
Connect with Jacob Morgan via his website and LinkedIn
Get your copy of Leading With Vulnerability by Jacob Morgan here
Episode Transcript:
Alexis Zahner (00:02.336)
Welcome to We Are Human Leaders, Jacob, it's a real pleasure to have you here with us today. And we'd love to be yeah, we'd love to begin by getting to know you a little bit more. So can you tell us a little bit about the journey that's brought you to the important work that you're doing now?
Jacob (00:08.418)
Thank you for having me.
Jacob (00:19.274)
Oh my goodness. I suppose it depends on how far back you wanna go. We can probably go back to the first job that I had out of college. So I was never a really good student. I went to the University of California, Santa Cruz. And prior to that, my grade point average in the States has always been like a C plus average. But when I got to the University of California, Santa Cruz, I really decided to work hard. I double majored in economics and psychology.
Jacob (00:49.566)
And I graduated with honors and I was very excited to join the corporate world. And I took a job working in downtown Los Angeles and it was around an hour and a half commute from where I lived to work and from work every day. But I took the job because I was sold this vision of working there and that I would have this great impact and meeting with executives and entrepreneurs and just doing really all this cool stuff. And so naturally I got excited and I took the job. And a few months in.
A few months into my job, I'm just doing data entry and cold calling and PowerPoint presentations. And the pivotal moment came for me when the CEO asked me to go get him a cup of coffee and at that point I realized what am I doing here? I, you know, I worked so hard in school and now I'm just getting this executive coffee and so that was one of the last jobs I had working for anybody else. Since that moment I.
Just started Googling, making money for yourself, make money online, build your own business, learning about entrepreneurship and doing everything that I could to avoid having to work for anybody else ever again. That was over 15 years ago and long story short, here I am now.
Alexis Zahner (02:02.812)
I really resonate with that experience, Jacob. I think it's such a challenge as a new grad as well, when you're so excited to enter the world of work and you're sold this sort of opportunity to be meaningful and impactful. And then yeah, what that actually translates through in the day to day isn't there. I had a really similar experience as well. So I definitely can resonate with that one.
Jacob (02:04.11)
Thank you.
Jacob (02:15.053)
Yeah.
Jacob (02:23.96)
Yeah, it deflates you and disengages you and makes you just not want to, not just not work for that company, but not want to work for anybody else ever again.
Alexis Zahner (02:26.336)
Absolutely.
Alexis Zahner (02:31.356)
Totally.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (02:32.335)
And if we think about that at scale, if you think about how many graduates have this enthusiasm, this intelligence, so much talent and capability, and then within a couple of years, if not months, they're really feeling like they can't actually express that in their work. It's such a huge missed opportunity, I think, for organizations.
Jacob (02:50.302)
Yeah, I think the difference is though, some people just hope to work and complain about it and other people do something with it. And so, you know, if you show up to work and all you do is complain and point out problems, you're not really doing yourself much and you're not also helping the organization. You know, so if you wanna be part of a company, like if I did wanna stay at that company, what I should have done is I should have showed up to work each day and I should have not just pointed out the problems but come up with solutions for what I could do, how I could contribute. Ask for...
Alexis Zahner (02:55.301)
That is true.
Jacob (03:18.982)
for doing different types of work, trying to take on projects, build myself up there. But instead I chose a different path, which was to go build something on my own. What I didn't do is just show up to work each day complaining about how terrible I had it and why am I doing this and my commute sucks and this company is terrible and expect to still be employed and have a job. And I feel like that's what a lot of people are doing in today's work environment. They show up to work.
Jacob (03:45.834)
They're unhappy. They don't really know why they're unhappy. They point out problems. They don't come up with solutions But at the same time they don't leave the company to go Do something else or build something on their own and I think that's not a very good thing to do
Sally Clarke (she/her) (03:59.063)
It sounds like you have a very strong sense of personal agency there and that really resonates for us, Jacob, I have to say. Now, I'd love to hear, now you recently written a book about leading with vulnerability, a little bit of a pivot, but I would like to get really granular here with you to understand what it means to you to lead with vulnerability.
Jacob (04:19.482)
Sure. So leading with vulnerability is not the same as vulnerability. Vulnerability is about exposing a gap that you might have and leading with vulnerability is about exposing a gap that you might have while trying to demonstrate what you're doing to close that gap. So a very simple and practical example might be you show up to work and you admit to making a mistake. You say, I'm really sorry. I messed this up. I feel terrible. That's exposing a gap that you have.
Jacob (04:46.55)
That doesn't do anything for you. It actually probably hurts you far more than it helps you. Leading with vulnerability would be saying, I'm really sorry I messed this up. I screwed up. I feel terrible, but here's what I learned from the mistake that I made. And here's what I'm gonna do in the future to make sure that mistake doesn't happen again. So I'm exposing the gap that I have and I'm demonstrating what I'm trying to do to actually close that gap. And too often we tell employees, be vulnerable at work. Be vulnerable at work.
That's terrible advice. That's bad leadership advice. That's employee advice, bad employee advice. It's not to say that you shouldn't be vulnerable, but you have to add that second piece to the equation, the leadership, the competence. Don't just talk about the gap. Talk about what you're doing to close that gap. This is important because I think for a number of reasons. First and foremost, you have a very different dynamic at work.
Jacob (05:35.778)
You have a boss, employees, leaders, customers, projects, deadlines, you're being paid a salary, there's a hierarchy. And so you can't just show up to work every day talking about the gaps that you have because people depend on you. You depend on other people. You got hired to do a job. You have to also talk about how you're learning and growing and becoming better. And especially if you have aspirations of leadership, if you have
any aspirations of getting ahead inside of your organization, you can't just point out the gaps that you have, but you have to demonstrate that level of competence. So I think that's a very critical and crucial element there. And that's why I always tell people being vulnerable can actually hurt you far more than it can help you. But leading with vulnerability can do a lot more good than it can harm.
Alexis Zahner (06:23.74)
I think that's a really important point to make Jake, but I appreciate you giving us the language to really discern between the two there. Because what it sounds like to me is leading with vulnerability is really about taking radical responsibility as a leadership for doing something about that. And we talk about this often at human leaders, this element of taking ownership, taking accountability for the way we show up and what we can do to change the world around us.
And I appreciate that it almost feels as though just sitting in vulnerability is more of like a victim mindset position to be in versus taking an active approach to doing something about that, whether it's resolving challenges or, um, you know, not being fated to make the same mistake over and over again. And I think that can also be quite manipulative as a leader, this sort of faux vulnerability where we're admitting our mistakes, but we're doing them again and again, and I think that sort of tells people that
Alexis Zahner (07:17.964)
It's actually okay for me to make this mistake and never change my behavior. But leaders often hold employees to a much higher sort of set of expectations than that. So I think it's really important that we do that as leaders to ourselves as well.
Jacob (07:31.53)
Yeah, victimhood is probably the worst thing that you can do for your career, for your business, for your team. Um, I, you know, my family went through a lot of difficult times, uh, whether we look at the Holocaust and where my ancestors came from, or whether my parents coming from the former USSR and ending up in the United States, they went through a lot of terrible things and saw a lot of terrible things and they never once viewed themselves as victims. They viewed themselves as people who were, um, survivors, who were learners, who were developers, who were builders, who were architects.
Jacob (08:01.726)
And so I think everybody has a choice in their life, whether you're going through tough times or good times of how, you know, the lens that you choose to view those things through. And you can choose to view those as, you know, why don't I have that? Or I wish I could do this, or I'm not getting this because of this. Or you could view it as, here's what I'm gonna do to get that. I'm gonna try harder. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And that's...
Jacob (08:25.154)
You know, and it's tough because even sometimes I fall into that victim mentality, right? It's, we all do at a certain point in time where you, you see maybe somebody else is succeeding, right? Somebody else's book is doing better than mine. Somebody else is getting speaking gigs that I'm not. And it's very tempting to fall into that. Well, you know, it's because I'm this or I'm that, and you start feeling sorry for yourself. And you have to catch yourself when you do that. And you have to say, Hey, you know what? You're not a victim here.
Jacob (08:54.378)
You do have a lot to be grateful for. Why don't you turn things around and ask yourself, what can you do to get to that point? How can you sell as many copies as that person? How can you get as many speaking gigs as that person? And so constantly being able to refrain or move from seeing yourself as a victim to viewing yourself as a character in a story who's going through ups and downs and who's being faced with challenges that you have to overcome, right? The hero's journey, I think is a far more effective way to view your life and to view your-
Jacob (09:24.002)
We are, but simply viewing yourself as a victim, I think is just, you know, we all need to stop doing that. But to your point, yeah, leading with vulnerability is about having that agency, that accountability, and that responsibility. And I feel like we are not doing a good enough job of teaching that inside of our organizations. We're very concerned with how are you feeling? How are you doing? Is everything okay? And it's not to say that there's no role for that. There is, but we also still have to remember that
Alexis Zahner (09:31.214)
Yeah.
Jacob (09:53.45)
It's not just about how you're doing and feeling and is everything okay and did I upset you but it's are you good at what you're supposed to be doing? Are you demonstrating the level of competence? Are you working on your skills? Are you learning? Are you growing? Are you impacting the team? Are you contributing? That is also an important aspect of work And this is why I say that leading or that vulnerability in your personal life is not the same as it is in your work life because in your personal life
If I'm talking to my, if you're talking to your spouse or your significant other or friend, it's a different dynamic. You don't have the hierarchy. You don't have, you know, your friend is not paying you. You don't have people depending on you like customers and employees. And so you could, you know, be vulnerable in a different way. But at work, the dynamic is different. And these people are not all your friends and you are accountable and you are responsible and you're supposed to be delivering and you're hired for a reason. You're getting a salary.
Jacob (10:48.202)
And so you have to view things differently in that kind of a dynamic. And this is why I tell people, don't just be vulnerable, but lead with vulnerability. So add, you know, leadership plus vulnerability equals leading with vulnerability.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (11:00.923)
Amazing, Jacob. And I'm just thinking of a situation, for example, when in organizations, I think there's quite a lot of organizations which have cultures where people are explicitly or otherwise encouraged to hide when they feel like their competencies don't actually match what they need to be doing and whether that's a, you know, just a job scarcity or any other issue that might be prevalent. How can leaders start to, you know, if you enter into that environment, for example, and people are really just not willing or afraid to actually.
own up to that gap between competencies and where they need to be. What might be an approach that leaders can take to start to elicit that vulnerability from employees?
Jacob (11:40.258)
Yeah, oftentimes we find that people use vulnerability as a crutch for competence, right? So you're not good at your job. And when somebody, you know, you talk about why, you know, what's going on, how come you're not being able to deliver, then you start to dive into all the vulnerabilities that you have and you try to, you know, I'm a victim here or I didn't have the budget or this person doesn't like me, or I, you know, I didn't know, or I need help, or I made a mistake, I'm sorry. And at a certain point, your leaders and your team are gonna look at you and they're gonna say, well, maybe this isn't the right fit for you.
I mean, you can't keep showing up to work every day just talking about the gaps that you have. And so I think the important thing for leaders is to lead by example, right? I mean, if you're a leader of a team or a function of a business, you need to lead with vulnerability. And it's okay to talk about the things or the mistakes that you've made, but talk about what you learned from the mistakes. It's okay to admit that you need help, but talk about what you're trying to do to help yourself and how you're trying to solve your own problem. It's okay that you don't know the answer to something.
Jacob (12:39.618)
but talk about what you're trying to do to figure it out. Right, one of the big mistakes that I oftentimes see new leaders make, and this is either when people get promoted to a leadership role for the first time, or whether they're seasoned leaders, but they now move into an executive role for the first time. And the biggest mistake, I actually just wrote about this on my sub stack yesterday, is how they address their employees for the first time. And so let's say you've just been promoted to a leadership role and somebody says,
have say a couple of words to your team. Since you just got promoted, what do you say? And most people go in for another team and they'll say something like, hey, I'm really excited to be here. I know I'm a first time leader and I've never done this before, but I'm really excited to be joining the team and making an impact. And I'm sure we're gonna do wonderful things together. Now on the surface, that doesn't sound bad, but what did you really do in that statement? You didn't demonstrate anything as far as your competence as a leader.
So what's far more effective if you're a first time leader is to take in some of that similar language and say, hey, I'm a first time leader here. I know I've never done this before. I know we're gonna make a big impact and then add the leadership piece. And so you might say something like, to help make sure I'm gonna be the best leader that you've had, I'm gonna be mentored by Jane. She's the SVP of marketing here. I'm gonna be meeting with her once a week. I've asked her to meet with me so I can share how things are going. I hired an executive coach.
who's gonna be meeting with some of you to get feedback. And by the way, here are three to five leadership books that I'm reading to try to get better. And I encourage you to read those books as well to kind of follow along. And so now all of a sudden, what I've done is I was still vulnerable and I've talked about that I'm new in this role, but I'm demonstrating what I'm trying to do to be the best leader that you've had. And so now people are gonna look at me and they're gonna say, well, you know, you've never done this before, but wow, you're really taking initiative. You're really serious about this role.
Jacob (14:33.654)
You're trying to become a better leader. Like that's the type of person that I want to work with and for. And you have to do that in all those different elements and all those different areas and instances in your life where vulnerability is present. Just ask yourself, how do I sprinkle in a little bit of that leadership? How do I sprinkle in a little bit of that competence in there to just change how people view me?
Alexis Zahner (14:55.94)
think that's so powerful, Jacob, because I think it helps us close that intention impact gap, it helps us understand where we're at, and the skills and knowledge and expertise or interpersonal skills necessary to do better. And it helps us actually actively move towards that so that we're not just sort of sitting and lamenting and the fact that well, I don't have these skills yet, or I'm not at that level yet. It gives us the direct pathway of saying, well, how do I close this gap? So
Alexis Zahner (15:24.168)
I can be as impactful as possible in a way that aligns with, you know, the intention I have of leading this team.
Jacob (15:24.278)
Yes.
Jacob (15:30.602)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's, uh, that's the point of what leading with vulnerability is all about, right? You need to have that action. You need to have the intention. You need to have the accountability and the responsibility. And, um, quite honestly, I don't think we do a good enough job of promoting that inside of companies.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (15:45.439)
And I think there's also, you're highlighting something that's really important as well around communication. Jacob, is it so often we make this assumption that simply by virtue of being a leader, that people will know that we're working with a coach and that we're reading leadership books and that we're listening to podcasts and we're informing ourselves and on this continuous growth journey. And, and that's, I think, you know, it's a very dangerous assumption to make.
Jacob (16:07.722)
Yeah, just because you're in a senior leadership role doesn't mean that you're competent. So competence, I think needs to be demonstrated across all levels. Seniority and competence don't necessarily go hand in hand. I mean, ideally they should, right? Ideally you got to your senior level role because of your competence, but that doesn't always happen, right? There are lots of people who get promoted because they're good at navigating office politics and bureaucracy.
Jacob (16:37.266)
because they are good at, or they've stayed at the company for a long time. Maybe they've brought in a lot of money to the business and then they get promoted. Nothing to do with their competence per se, but they've kind of, you know, it's more like office politics and bureaucracy. And so this is why if you are current or aspiring leader, you have to bring together competence with your vulnerability.
Alexis Zahner (17:00.836)
I'd say that's the case probably more often than we recognize Jacob. So it's a really important issue to raise there. Now in your latest book as well, you also unpack how vulnerability can transform both yourself as an individual, your team and your organization. Can we just take a moment to zoom in on this and explicitly explore how we can use vulnerability or leading with vulnerability rather to actually transform ourselves, our team and our organization?
Jacob (17:29.517)
Sure, so where do you want to start?
Alexis Zahner (17:31.62)
Let's start with the individual. I think that's, we, we always like to begin from the inside out. So let's start there.
Jacob (17:37.122)
Well, I mean, if you look at the individual perspective, leading with vulnerabilities, how you learn and grow and develop. I mean, if you don't do those things, you cannot become a better version of yourself. If you think of yourself as an app, think about how often you update the apps on your phone, probably on a weekly basis, about how often are you updating yourself, right? How often are you updating your skills, your mindsets, your abilities? You should be updating those all the time too. And if you don't lead with vulnerability, you will never do that.
Jacob (18:06.478)
because part of leading with vulnerability is exposing the gaps that you have and then taking action to try to close those gaps. But if you never talk about the gaps that you have and you never talk about that you're trying to close those gaps, essentially what you're doing is cocooning yourself in the current version of yourself. The danger of that is you might stay in that static present state, but the world around you changes. And so as the world around you changes, while you become static, what happens over time is you become a lesser version of yourself.
Jacob (18:35.35)
you become less effective, less knowledgeable, less capable of leading a team. And so inherently by doing nothing, you're stagnating yourself and eventually you're putting yourself into a state of perpetual decline. So a lot of people think the opposite of vulnerability is invulnerability or doing nothing, but it's not. The opposite of that is stagnation and eventual gradual decline. Like you become a lesser version of yourself.
Jacob (19:05.046)
So for you as an individual, it's really about, do you wanna keep learning and growing? Do you wanna be a leader? Do you have aspirations to move ahead and progress in your career? If so, you can't do that without leading with vulnerable.
Alexis Zahner (19:19.008)
I can't help but think, you know, a totally different analogy, but it's almost like keeping cash in time of an inflation, like you're losing wealth over time. And essentially, when you choose to remain the same day in day out, you're actually, you know, losing personal value to an extent in terms of your contribution and growth opportunity missed. That's right.
Jacob (19:34.222)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, your dollars are worth less because you kept it in cash, inflation is at two or 3%. And so things are more expensive, but you don't have any more money to buy those things, you're using the same cash. And so yeah, that's another great way to think about that analogy as well. So kind of investing your money so that it grows to keep up with inflation. Similarly, you should be investing in yourself, not just so that you keep up with inflation, but so you can actually stay ahead of it. So if things are growing at 2%, ideally you're growing at 3% or 4% or 5%.
Alexis Zahner (19:46.876)
That's right.
Jacob (20:07.126)
but you don't want to be behind where the growth is. And I think that's where a lot of leaders find themselves.
Alexis Zahner (20:10.524)
Yeah. Couldn't agree more. And so Jacob, at a team level, how can leading with vulnerability impact that dynamic?
Jacob (20:20.374)
So similar to what it does to the individual, it just expands to the team level, but it does create more in terms of psychological safety. It allows employees to come forward to share ideas if they have them, to identify opportunities, to mitigate threats, to serve customers better. So anything that a team is ultimately responsible for, all of those elements get enhanced even more because instead of one person who's becoming a better version of yourself,
Jacob (20:50.038)
You have a team that's constantly becoming a better version of itself. And I think that's very, very important, especially in the world that we're in today, because a lot of teams are being asked to do more with less. We're constantly trying to think of how to restructure teams, how to get the most out of teams, how to innovate and come up with new ideas. And again, you can't do that without leading with a vulnerability, because if you assume that everything is okay and stagnant, then that's how your employees are gonna show up, that everything's okay and stagnant.
Jacob (21:19.714)
We don't need to do anything differently. We're gonna keep on with the status quo. And so this is why you as a leader, leading by example, you have so much impact and influence to make sure that that's how the team actually operates.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (21:34.299)
It's a huge point you're making there, Jacob. It's really for me making it really clear that mindset and that leadership that the leader brings can be so determinative for outcomes and really changing from that sort of, stuck in the same old ways of doing things. And I imagine there's also a little piece of courage that comes with it. And to sort of shift, particularly if you are in an organization, I'm a former lawyer and law firms are rife with doing things, how they've always been done.
So there's that courage piece as well that I think can be so inspiring for teams.
Jacob (22:07.638)
Yeah, there is courage. I interviewed, his name was Jim Deidert. I forgot where he's a professor at, but he had this great definition of courage, which was very much aligned with my definition of vulnerability. And then I interviewed him and we realized, oh, that's interesting. That my definition of vulnerability is similar to what his definition of courage is, right? And it's, you do need to have courage to be vulnerable, but as you're vulnerable, you build courage. So I think that there's...
Jacob (22:36.887)
They kind of impact and influence each other.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (22:40.035)
Love that. Now, just to sort of round out the piece, can you speak to the organisational outcomes that leading with vulnerability can have? And perhaps if you have an example where you've seen that occur.
Jacob (22:53.742)
Sure. So in sort of an organizational example, I mean, we looked at, so I surveyed 100 employees or interviewed 100 CEOs, surveyed 14,000 employees. And we looked at the business aspect of this in terms of in organizations where leaders are leading with vulnerability, often are always when appropriate. In those organizations, employees are almost three times as likely more engaged. They're twice as likely to innovate and come up with new ideas.
Jacob (23:23.314)
Trust is much higher. So across the board and in those organizations, there's a much higher perception of higher leadership quality. So inside of a company where leaders are leading with vulnerability often are always when appropriate, the leaders in that business are viewed as more higher quality. And this is a very consistent trend where the more leading with vulnerability happens, the more...
the higher the quality of leaders are perceived to be. So there's a lot of impact across the board as far as innovation. These organizations are better leading hybrid teams, coming up with innovative solutions during difficult times. So there's a lot that can be said as far as the impact of the business goes. And what was your follow-up question there? Was there a second piece of that?
Sally Clarke (she/her) (24:12.715)
Oh, just the second piece was sort of a specific example where you've seen that maybe from the book, one of those CEOs or organizations that you derived data from.
Jacob (24:25.174)
One that I really like that I share quite a bit is Fleetwood Grobbler. He's the CEO of a company called Sassol. But to understand his story, I have to share the story of Hollis Harris, who's the former CEO of Continental Airlines. And in the 90s, Hollis was asked to deliver a memo to his entire workforce because the company was going through a tough time. And so he sent out a memo to his workforce talking about
how the company was struggling and the challenges they were going through and how all these trends were against them and just went on and on and on. And he ended his memo by saying that the best thing that employees could do was to pray for the future of the company. Now on the surface, it's a very vulnerable thing to say and do. But as we've talked about, there was no leadership there. So the next day he was fired. And I contrast that to a story that I have in the book about Fleetwood Grobbler, the CEO of a South African energy company called Sassil.
When Fleetwood became the CEO, he was in a similar spot. The company was $13 billion in debt. It was on the verge of bankruptcy. The banks wanted to come in and take it over. He too was supposed to give an all hands message to his workforce. And his message started out with vulnerability, but it ended up with leadership. So he said, you know, he again talked about the challenges that the business was going through, the struggles, how they were in debt. But then he talked about that he had a vision for what this organization could become.
that he knew that if employees came together, they would be able to rebuild trust in their customers and in the eyes of the workforce. And he asked his employees to go on this journey with him and that he was confident that together, they could figure out the right path forward to turn the business around. And that's exactly what they did. So that's the difference between simply being vulnerable versus leading with vulnerability. And I think it's a good contrast between the two.
Alexis Zahner (26:14.656)
Yeah, I would agree, Jacob. I think that that's a perfect articulation of how we then take that ownership piece for the, for the what next, you know, it's one thing to admit fault and gap, but then to actually say, and here's what we're doing about it, especially I can imagine from an employee perspective, just is reassuring first and foremost that your leader actually is steering the ship in the right direction. And that also gives some clarity to vision, like, okay, well, how are we going to do this? And I think that's really compelling.
Alexis Zahner (26:44.304)
for human beings to commit, to stay engaged, and to actually want to be part of that evolution forward.
Jacob (26:50.442)
Yes. Yeah. No, I couldn't agree more. Um, and I think that's what we need to be talking about much more inside of our organizations.
Alexis Zahner (27:00.072)
Now, Jacob, you've also written a book around the future of work back in 2014. And the future leader also in 2020. Yeah. And I guess a lot's changed a lot that we couldn't perhaps see at that time now. And you're also a trained futurist, Jacob. So I'd love to dive into this a little bit more. We have to ask you, how do you see the future of work and leadership now? Where are we headed?
Jacob (27:06.698)
Long time.
Jacob (27:23.914)
Um, oh man, that's a broad question. So I think there's probably a lot of different directions that we can go in. Um, as far as where the future of work is going, I mean, you can look at it for, uh, I mean, do you have a particular lens you want me to take a look at it from? Or do you want me to just.
Alexis Zahner (27:38.56)
You know, I think our, our let's go deeper than in the leadership side of things, because I think we're at this precipice of sort of realizing that what we have done in the past isn't going to be what's going to take us forward. So if we could, maybe let's look at it through that lens.
Jacob (27:53.774)
Sure. Well, I guess one way where that can probably be applied to is looking at the realm of AI. So I think with something like ChatGPT and generative AI, it's going to make it very clear who the good leaders are and who the bad leaders are. And it's because the bad leaders only focus on command and control and decision making. And we're going to see technology be able to do that more effectively. So a good leader helps unlock the potential of people. And so if technology is going to be
a lot of that decision-making and delegation, then it's the good leaders who are really gonna thrive, those who are able to focus on unlocking the potential of others. So I think that's a very interesting realm that we're gonna see. I think 2024 is gonna be the big year of getting back into the office, not necessarily full-time nine to five, but I personally would love to see more employees working from an office. I'm a big believer in hybrid work, but we're at a stage now where employees don't even wanna show up to work at all.
Jacob (28:50.67)
And so I think 2024 is gonna be the year of getting back into the office at least part time. And I think it's necessary for the company. And I think if you as an employee have aspirations of becoming a leader, you should want to be in front of your peers. You should want to be in front of your leaders where you can get coaching from them and learn from them. And it's interesting because I put up a article a little while ago saying why this was so important. And a lot of people were saying, oh, you're an idiot. This is terrible. I love working from home and this and that.
Jacob (29:20.854)
And then I put up a poll on LinkedIn and I said, where do you think you're gonna be more successful? Where would your career flourish more? Would it be from home or would it be from the office? And the vast majority of people said from the office. So we like the idea of working from home, but we also understand that for our careers, being in the office, if we wanna grow and excel is probably the best option for us. And it also comes down to understanding the difference between productivity versus innovation and going above and beyond.
Jacob (29:50.178)
Productivity just means that you're gonna go out of business later. Productivity is not something that we should be striving for. Productivity means that you're checking off things from a to-do list. And sure, if your goal is just to be productive, yeah, work from home by all means. But if your goal is to do more, to become a leader, to solve complex problems, to innovate, to be creative, then you're gonna need to show up to an office. It was funny, there was an article that came out a couple of days ago. I think her name was Sally Kraschik.
She's the CEO of a company called Ellevest. And she had a great quote in there and she said, you know, we've been working from home and yeah, we've been productive, but our creativity has struggled. And a lot of organizations have pointed this out. Microsoft was another one. They said, yeah, we've been productive in a virtual world, but our innovation and our creativity has struggled. And so if you just want productivity, nothing matters, right? Work from home. But if you do want innovation,
Jacob (30:46.954)
If you wanna solve complex problems, if you wanna go above and beyond, you're gonna need that in-person work. I always tell people, you know, for example, if you have aspirations of becoming a leader, how do you think you're gonna learn to become a good leader? Do you think you're gonna learn how to become a leader staring at a screen, looking at a camera? Or do you think you're gonna be more effective getting leadership skills when you're in person with another leader where they can coach you and mentor you and you can see executive presence and body language and how they command a room and how they communicate. And so,
Jacob (31:16.39)
This not just comes down to the issue of productivity versus innovation, but the goals that you as an individual have for yourself. And if you strive to become a leader, an executive, maybe one day a CEO, get back into the office, spend time with your peers and leaders. If you're content with being where you are, and you have no aspirations of moving anywhere, hey, you know what, do what you want, don't show up to the office, but then probably don't surprise if you're not gonna be at that company for very long. So,
Jacob (31:45.458)
Yeah, so I think 2024, that's what we're going to see there. And I hope that going forward, we're going to see a lot more of this blending of both competence and vulnerability, because I think we're too overly indexed on the vulnerability side right now.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (31:58.619)
some fascinating points, Jacob, and it's interesting. I read a call through a report about burnout and the results have actually just come out. And we found that the highest rate of wellbeing and the lowest rate of burnout was for people who are working hybrid two to three days a week in the office, two to three days a week at home, but very close behind was what was 100% in the office. And it was fascinating to us. And as a...
someone who is quite introverted, I think I always sort of thought, assumed that working from home is kind of a comfort zone thing, but what you spoke to so eloquently as well as I think this component of role modeling, learning from others happens so much more viscerally when we're actually in person with people.
Jacob (32:42.014)
Yeah. And burnout's interesting, right? Because if you were to look back 70s, 80s, 90s, we didn't talk about burnout. I mean, you look at somebody like a Steve Jobs or Sam Walton who built Walmart or Jack Welsh who was running GE. We didn't talk about burnout, right? I mean, people worked hard and it was okay and accepted and respected to work hard, but we also kind of took care of our lives independently on our own outside of work.
And so I think one of the big challenges that I have with the kind of burnout culture that we're in now is that a lot of the emphasis and the blame gets placed on top of the organization. In other words, it's the organization that's burning me out. It's the leader that's burning me out. But you have just as much agency over your burnout as the leader does. And so if you're not sleeping enough, if you're not exercising, if you're not eating healthy, if you don't have a community around you, if you're not...
If you don't have any hobbies, if you're not doing things in your own personal life and everything is revolved around work, yes, you're going to get burned out. But it's unfair to say that you're burned out just because of the work that you're doing or the leader you work with or because of the business. And so I think we need to, again, get back to having a little bit more agency and accountability and responsibility over our own lives to know that, yeah, work can be stressful. We've all had stressful situations at work.
But work is not the only cause of what happens in your life. And so you, we all individually need to take more accountability and responsibility for what happens in our lives. And if you are that unhappy with your job, and if you feel genuinely that your company is burning you out, then quit and go do something else. But don't show up to work every day, complain about how burned out you are, don't do anything about it, and then keep doing the same thing every day. That's kind of the stuff that drives me nuts. Now it's not to say that you know, some burnout doesn't exist, you know, I'm sure it does. I've been there before, but I work for myself and there have been times, days, weeks, months where I'm just, I've worked so much that I just, I'm fatigued, right? I just, I have to relax. But it's not that kind of burnout, right? A lot of the burnout that people talk about now is a medical condition which requires weeks, months, or a year of taking time off from work. That...is something that I have a hard time grappling with.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (35:06.051)
Look, I think we could talk for hours about this particular topic, but what I really love that you're highlighting here, Jacob, is that I think this accountability piece and this sort of personal responsibility, I would love to see that be part of more a part of our education systems, because I think we're so good at training in sort of very theoretical ideas and we really skip this part of, you know, self leadership and who am I and how do I take care of myself to make sure that I can navigate a sustainable career, rather than get to a point where...
I think for a lot of people, it's quite normalized to talk about work in very negative terms and almost take on this sort of victim mentality. So I think there's a lot more we could unpack with you around the future of work, burnout and many other topics, but I'm sure there's a lot of leaders listening right now who would love to bring more vulnerability to their leadership. In addition to buying your book, what would be some first steps that they might be able to take to start that journey today?
Jacob (35:40.802)
Yeah.
Jacob (36:02.082)
Probably the best piece of advice I have is to build your vulnerability mountain. And what that means is to identify what's at base camp for you and what's at the peak. Base camp is something that you could start doing tomorrow and the peak is something that's really scary, that's far away, that's gonna take you some time to build up to. And once you understand what's at base camp and what's at the peak, then you can take gradual steps every day, every week, every month, to kind of get from where you are to where you want to be. And I think that's probably the most helpful visual and metaphor for people to think about.
And the second piece of advice is just remember the vulnerable leader equation. Leadership plus vulnerability equals leading with vulnerability. And whenever vulnerability is present, just ask yourself how you can add a little bit of leadership to that vulnerability.
Alexis Zahner (36:45.476)
That's brilliant advice, Jacob. Thank you so much. Um, I think it's certainly changed the way that we viewed vulnerability and most certainly given us some agency and personal accountability around how we move forward with that. So thank you, Jacob, for joining us on, we are human leaders.
Jacob (37:01.438)
My pleasure, thank you for having me. And can I mention one thing where people can get the book? Okay, we made a special URL for it, so I'm very excited about it. Leadwithvulnerability.com is where people can go to grab a copy of the book. And if people wanna reach out to me, my email is jacob at thefutureorganization.com.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (37:05.527)
Absolutely.
Alexis Zahner (37:05.852)
for sure.
Alexis Zahner (37:19.984)
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Jacob.