The Power of Vulnerable Leadership in Today's Workplace

Summary

Vulnerable leadership means being open about uncertainty, mistakes, and areas where you need help while still showing confidence and accountability. It matters because it can strengthen trust, encourage people to speak up, and bring more perspectives into problem-solving. Leaders can practice vulnerability by admitting when they don’t know, owning mistakes, asking for input, and creating space for others to challenge their thinking.

At one automotive parts manufacturing company DDI worked with, vulnerable leadership wasn’t exactly part of the culture. Among the leaders involved, emotional sensitivity wasn’t highly valued.

That’s not to say they were unpleasant people.

Rather, they felt the weight of responsibility on their shoulders. In their eyes, the best way they could support their teams was to have all the answers. After all, that’s why they got paid the big bucks. But one leader encountered a challenge so big that he didn’t know what to do. After a round of cost-saving measures, he had cut his team’s spending to the bone.

And then he got hit with a mandate from the CEO: He had to cut another $8 million from the budget. Short of laying off a lot of people, which would make it even harder to get the work done, he had no idea what to do. So, in a rare moment of vulnerability, he took the problem to his team of lower-level leaders. And for the first time, he said, “I need your help. I don’t know what to do here.” They got to work immediately.

In the end, his team didn’t just find $8 million in cost savings. They found double. And they didn’t lay off a single person.

It was a light bulb moment for the leader. When he thought he was at his weakest, he was actually leading at his strongest. And it changed the dynamic on his team permanently. They suddenly started working together much more closely to solve problems and to help one another reach larger goals.

It turned out that vulnerability could actually pay off big.

What Is Vulnerable Leadership?

The topic of vulnerable leadership has been around for a long time, including Brené Brown's wildly successful TED Talk on the Power of Vulnerability and Dan Coyle's The Culture Code. DDI has also explored vulnerability as an essential leadership behavior, including in DDI's podcast conversation with Jacob Morgan, author of Leading with Vulnerability.

These are all great sources, and they point to a common idea: Effective leadership doesn’t require pretending to have every answer.

But for practical purposes, here’s a simple definition: vulnerable leadership means having the courage to admit your flaws, uncertainty, and challenges to others. It’s about being able to say, “I don’t know, or I’m not sure. I need help with this.”

It might sound overly simple. And most leaders would probably tell you they already do this. They will tell you they're already their authentic selves at work. But it’s worth asking yourself: When was the last time you really said you didn’t know? When did you say I need more help to figure out the solution?

More often than not, leaders struggle to give a clear example. Because while they think they’re doing it, they aren’t really. That’s because vulnerability is much harder to practice when the stakes are real.

Why Vulnerable Leadership Matters at Every Level

Vulnerability matters whether you lead five people or 5,000. At every level, leaders face moments when they don’t have complete information, when a decision doesn’t work as planned, or when someone else knows more than they do. The question is whether they can acknowledge those realities in a way that helps the team move forward.

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast reinforces just how important these human-centered leadership behaviors have become. Trust in immediate managers fell sharply from 46% in 2022 to just 29% in 2024. Trust in senior leaders remained low at 32%.

The research also points to several behaviors leaders can use to rebuild trust: listening and responding with genuine empathy, encouraging people to speak up without fear of reprisal, sharing the thinking behind decisions, and inviting people to challenge old ways of working.

All of these behaviors require leaders to loosen their grip on the idea that leadership means having unquestioned authority. They require openness, curiosity, and a willingness to acknowledge that someone else may have a better answer.

And vulnerability matters for leaders themselves, too. DDI’s research shows that 71% of leaders reported a significant increase in stress since stepping into their current role. The most common ways leaders managed stress were self-reflection (74%) and open discussions (71%). The research specifically notes that seeking conversations can demonstrate vulnerability as a strength and a commitment to collective problem-solving.

Why Vulnerable Leadership Can Feel Difficult

Ask why leaders struggle to show vulnerability and two themes come up again and again: ego and fear. Leaders may worry about not having the answer, being wrong, or no longer looking like the smartest person in the room.
Ego is a major barrier to expressing vulnerability. But it’s often misunderstood. We often assume it means the person is exceptionally arrogant and can’t imagine being wrong. In reality, ego can have as much to do with insecurity as arrogance.

A leader may privately worry that saying “I don’t know” will cause others to question whether they deserve the role. And the more responsibility they take on, the more pressure they may feel to project certainty.
Whatever the source, many leaders are driven by the same motivation: Fear. Fear that they will fail. Fear that they will be perceived as incompetent. Fear that others will think less of them.
Often, leaders have advanced to their position by having all the right answers. And in many cases, they really do have deep expertise. But it becomes the only way they know to succeed. They think, “If I don’t have all the right answers, what’s my value here?”

That’s where ego comes in. They aren’t trying to be perfect because they think they are perfect. They avoid vulnerability because they think that if they make a mistake or admit a weakness, it conflicts with how they see themselves and the value they provide to the organization. Ironically, however, the lack of vulnerability may be what most inhibits their success.

Does Showing Vulnerability Undermine Trust?

When I talk with leaders about vulnerability, one common worry is that they will lose their team's faith and trust. If they reveal that they don’t have all the answers, how will anyone trust them to make difficult decisions or guide the team forward?

But showing vulnerability doesn’t have to weaken trust. In fact, many of the behaviors that support vulnerable leadership are also critical to building it. DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast points to four key trust-building behaviors: listening and responding with empathy, encouraging people to speak up without fear of reprisal, sharing the rationale behind decisions, and inviting people to challenge old ways of doing things.

Why? Because appropriate vulnerability helps leaders invite others into the process of finding answers. Rather than pretending to be certain, they signal that questions, concerns, alternative ideas, and constructive challenges are welcome. That helps create psychological safety, a critical ingredient in high-performing teams.

Vulnerability, in other words, doesn’t require a leader to surrender authority. Done well, it can make their authority more credible because people can see that confidence and honesty can coexist.

When a Lack of Vulnerability Creates Business Risk

While some leaders eventually buy into the idea that vulnerability with their team can boost performance and problem-solving, they often struggle to show vulnerability when the stakes are high, especially with their own manager, senior leaders, customers, or other important stakeholders.

However, this lack of vulnerability leads to one very big problem: Leaders avoid solving the most critical problems. Instead, they focus completely on what they know how to do and avoid talking about the things they don’t know how to solve.

Consider what happens when a leader encounters a problem outside their expertise but feels unable to admit it. Rather than bring the issue into the open, they may gravitate toward familiar problems they know how to solve. Meanwhile, the harder problem grows.

This tendency is deeply human: Many of us avoid dealing with things that make us uncomfortable or that we don't understand. But when this tendency to avoid personal vulnerability shows up in leaders responsible for consequential decisions, it creates a massive vulnerability for the organization. 

This is especially important in a business environment where leaders are being asked to navigate unfamiliar challenges such as AI, rapid change, workforce uncertainty, and increasingly complex employee expectations. Vulnerability gives leaders permission to bring questions into the open before uncertainty turns into organizational risk.

What Does an Appropriate Level of Vulnerability Look Like?

As with most things, vulnerability is best done in moderation. But a lot of leaders aren’t really clear on what it looks like to express vulnerability appropriately. How much is too much? What level isn’t enough?

Let’s start with some clarity on what vulnerability is not:

• A lack of confidence: “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
• A pessimistic attitude: “I don’t see how we could possibly do that.”
• Being too self-deprecating: “I’m a total idiot when it comes to technology.”

Instead, here’s what it does sound like:

• “I’m not sure how we’ll accomplish this, but between all of us, I’m certain we can find the right solutions.”
• “This is new terrain for me. We’re going to have to do some learning together.”
• “You (individual or group) are the subject matter experts here, so I’m looking to learn from you and tap into that expertise to help lead us in the right direction.”
• “When I was first in (a previous role), I was clueless, and this is how I managed the situation to eventually transition to feeling capable.”
• “There’s something I may be missing. What are you seeing that I’m not?”

You might also hear phrases like “I’m having trouble,” “I’m stuck,” or “I could be wrong here—what do you think?” The key is that vulnerable leaders don’t make their uncertainty someone else’s problem. They remain accountable while creating room for other people’s expertise, perspectives, and ideas.

How to Develop Vulnerable Leadership at Every Level

Telling leaders to “be more vulnerable” is unlikely to change much on its own. Vulnerability is better developed as part of a broader leadership development strategy that builds self-awareness, interpersonal skills, trust, coaching capability, and opportunities for practice.

Here are several ways organizations can help leaders become more comfortable with it:

1. Leverage 360 data. 

If you’re collecting 360 degree feedback with your leaders, include some questions about how others perceive their approach to unfamiliar situations:

• Do they ask for help?
• Do they work to collaborate?
• Do they seek to learn from others when they don’t have expertise in a particular area?

The 360 can help leaders understand how others view them and whether it aligns with their intentions.

2. Employ personality assessments.

Personality assessments with feedback from a trained feedback provider can help give leaders those “aha!” moments about why they react the way they do in certain situations. A coach can also use the assessment later to help leaders understand their natural tendencies to avoid vulnerability and how the consequences may be playing out in their work.

A note of caution: Choose assessments that offer meaningful, objective insight rather than simply assigning people to broad personality categories. The best assessment experiences give leaders specific, actionable feedback they can connect directly to their day-to-day leadership challenges.

3. Use coaching and practice.

A coach, manager, facilitator, or other development partner can employ questioning, role-playing, practice, and feedback to help leaders become more comfortable demonstrating vulnerability by focusing on behaviors that signal humility, inclusion, and authenticity. They can also help leaders recognize how the words they use either help or hinder their efforts to practice vulnerable leadership.

Practice is especially important. Leaders need safe, low-stakes opportunities to rehearse moments such as admitting a mistake, asking for input, responding to a challenge, or saying they don’t know. That practice helps vulnerability feel less like a leap of faith when the stakes are higher.

You Have to Build a Culture of Vulnerable Leadership

The biggest barrier to vulnerable leadership is your leadership culture. It has to be a shared value that starts at the top. If leaders see that admitting a mistake, challenging an idea, or asking for help carries career consequences, no amount of training will convince them to be more open.

Organizations need to create the conditions that make healthy vulnerability possible. That means senior leaders modeling openness themselves, managers responding productively when people speak up, and teams treating questions and mistakes as opportunities to learn rather than ammunition to use against someone.

When leaders at every level embrace vulnerability, the effect extends beyond individual relationships. Teams become more willing to surface risks, challenge assumptions, share ideas, and solve problems together. Because leadership strength doesn’t come from pretending certainty. Sometimes it comes from having enough confidence to say, “I don’t know yet. Let’s figure it out together.”