Imagine this: an executive leader is told that a product the company has been preparing to unveil is not ready and has a flaw that cannot allow it to go to market in time. She is inundated with questions from her team about what to do next.
Some leaders might ignore the issue and push through with the product launch. Some leaders might brush off questions and cause the team to become more confused and concerned. Some leaders might posture as if they know what to do, even when they don’t. This leader does something different. She experiences the emotional response of fear, disappointment, and anxiety. She does not try to suppress it. She allows it to happen. Then she says to her team,
“I know that this is unexpected for all of us. I don’t have the answer right now. But I have a plan for how we can find it together.”
This is vulnerable leadership—and it’s quickly becoming one of the most powerful tools an executive can wield.
What Is Vulnerable Leadership?
Vulnerable leadership is not just about being open—it’s about using that sense of openness as a tool. At its core, it involves accepting a sense of uncertainty, inviting collaborative dialogue, and acknowledging that one person doesn’t always, and can’t be expected to, know all of the answers all the time. But to truly understand the impact it has, we need to look at vulnerability not as an inherent trait, but as a leadership behavior that can be learned; one with measurable effects on organizational dynamics.
In a 2022 study published by Cambridge University Press, researchers explored how leader humility, which can be seen as a leader’s ability to see the strengths of others, admit their own limitations, and receive feedback, correlated positively with employee ability to vocalize thoughts and ideas at work, and to help others around them. The effect of a humble leader was shown to directly impact the other-oriented motivations of team members, which are altruistic impulses that benefit other people and the larger group over the self.
This reinforces a critical point: vulnerable leadership is not a passive posture. It’s not a weakness. It’s an active, intentional practice of lowering defenses in order to increase collaboration. It doesn’t mean that leaders step back and relinquish authority—it means they use their status to deliberately create space for others to raise their voices and contribute meaningfully. As the modern workplace continues to change, and be impacted by forces like AI and machine learning, human-centered leadership will only grow more valuable and be more important in fostering the kinds of environments where people and ideas are able to thrive.
The Hidden ROI of Vulnerability
One of the most underappreciated outcomes of vulnerable leadership is its ability to create psychological safety—a term coined by Amy Edmondson, a professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School. Psychological safety refers to a shared belief among team members that the environment they’re contributing to is a place that’s safe enough to take risks, share unique perspectives, and admit mistakes without fear of retribution or consequence. Basically, psychological safety is the condition of feeling able to be vulnerable.
In terms of leadership and the workplace, that means that leaders who model vulnerability contribute to environments of this kind of safety – where team members can take risks, share feelings and opinions, and themselves be vulnerable. By modeling openness, leaders are able to signal that bringing one’s full self to the table and speaking with candor is not only acceptable – it’s expected.
Rebuilding Trust in a Distrustful Age
Corporate trust is at a crossroads. With the proliferation of AI-generated images and videos, the ability to create ‘deepfakes,’ and the possibility that people on the internet are nothing more than bots being deployed from a bot farm, people have less reason to trust now than they had in times before these new technologies emerged. Because trust is at a crossroads, good leaders need to invest even more time and intention in creating cultures of trust and openness in their workplaces and among their teams. Mistrust is isolating – true connection brings people together. By modeling vulnerable leadership, leaders have a golden opportunity to rebuild the fabric of their surroundings and increase connectedness and satisfaction for everyone under their umbrella of influence.
One strength of vulnerable leadership is that it humanizes authority. Technology is binary – humans contain multitudes. When executives acknowledge complexity instead of obscuring it, they align themselves with the lived experience of their teams and stakeholders. When they take accountability for mistakes, they invite loyalty rather than disconnection. And when they share their own internal learning processes, they create space for others to grow, too.
In an era where institutional trust is in decline, vulnerable leadership is a countercultural force—one that fosters authenticity and deepens the bonds of trust across the board.
Why the Best Leaders Ask Better Questions
One of the clearest signs of vulnerable leadership isn’t what leaders state—it’s what they ask. Open-ended questions signal curiosity, generosity, and a willingness to learn. Leaders who ask well-thought out, sincere questions model a growth mindset that is collaborative and invites others to lean in.
Some examples of these kinds of questions might be:
- “Can you think of any risks we haven’t accounted for?”
- “Where has the team made assumptions here?”
- “What do you need from me to complete this project?”
These questions do more than gather data—they build trust. They invite others to contribute their own insights. They send a signal that team members are valued not just for what they accomplish, but for how they think.
Vulnerable Leadership in Crisis Management
Vulnerable leadership shows its true value in times of operational crisis. During any event that causes a shock to an organization—whether it’s a round of layoffs or sudden market disruption—employees look to their leadership not only for direction but also for emotional cues.
Vulnerable leaders don’t obscure reality. They don’t gaslight their team by downplaying or minimizing what employees already know. They don’t engage in toxic positivity, covering over pain with a veneer of false happiness. Instead, they honestly acknowledge challenges, checking in with themselves to assess and embrace their own emotional response, and then they enact the kind of steady resolve that helps teams move forward one step at a time.
Crisis magnifies all emotions. In those moments where everything feels like it’s falling apart, vulnerability becomes an accelerant for trust—or its absence a catalyst for chaos.
How To Operationalize Vulnerability
It’s not enough to display vulnerable leadership once in a while. In order to truly bake it into the culture of the workplace, leaders must embed it into daily practice. Another way to think about this is to operationalize it. This means developing processes, norms, and feedback systems that create space for vulnerability and make it a regular part of how teams function. Weekly reflection huddles, check-ins after key initiatives, and solicitations of honest feedback are just a few practical ways to keep vulnerability engaged and consistently operational.
When embedded into the rhythms of daily life, vulnerability becomes a driver of resilience. It allows for intentional course correction, an increased sense of trust, and the ability for team members to take risks – driving innovation and allowing for new and exciting ideas to come to fruition.
Strategic Frameworks for Vulnerable Leadership
Vulnerability can feel intangible, especially for data-driven leaders who like their drivers to be rooted in numbers and statistics. But frameworks like Brené Brown’s BRAVING Inventory can be a touchpoint for leaders and help them to visualize the cornerstones of trust – in order to embody it in everyday interactions and communications.
BRAVING stands for boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault, integrity, nonjudgement, and generosity. The idea is that leaders can remember this acronym in order to keep these character traits top of mind – so that they can be accessed in times of stress or even just in ordinary situations. Brave leadership is vulnerable leadership, in that it requires executives to hold boundaries, make good on their word, do what they say they will, keep confidences safe, act in alignment with their own values, accept others without casting judgement, and offer their skills and resources with generosity.
Following this model is a way to build trust with others – something that vulnerable leadership prizes.
How to Measure the ROI of Vulnerable Leadership
One of the most common questions from boards and executives about any kind of leadership model or initiative is: How do we know if it’s working?
Measuring the return on vulnerable leadership requires a mix of quantitative and qualitative indicators. It can include measuring levels of employee engagement, as well as retention. Surveys can help to capture the level of engagement among employees as well as the level of trust – a higher level can indicate an environment of psychological safety, and a leader who is vulnerable enough to create it.
Other ways to measure ROI can include team innovation levels. If a team is showing increased creativity and innovation, it means that its members feel safe enough to take risks, speak up, and try something new. This can only happen in an environment where vulnerability is embraced from the top down.
Lastly, crisis resilience is a good indicator of the health of teams. A resilient team led by a vulnerable leader is more likely to be able to bounce back after trauma or setback – and they’re more likely to be closer for it afterwards instead of frazzled and more fragmented.
A culture of vulnerability, when intentionally supported, becomes a source of long-term competitive advantage.
Vulnerability Is a Strategic Imperative
In uncertain times, courage looks different than it does when things are going well and the future feels clear. During times when things are a little more unsure, having the loudest voice in the room is not the way forward. It’s about asking open-ended questions, trusting your people, looking inward, and showing humanity to illustrate to your team that they’re part of something bigger and that they can trust the person in charge.
Vulnerable leadership isn’t a leadership style. And it’s not an optional add-on to the status quo. It’s an intrinsic strength that can, and should be tapped into not just in times of crisis but every day. It builds trust. It accelerates a sense of shared purpose. It transforms how people show up, speak up, and collaborate to solve problems together.
It’s how leaders build organizations where people are motivated to put in their best effort to achieve transformational results.
Coaching for Courage: Arden’s Approach
At Arden Coaching, we don’t treat vulnerability as a side note or an add-on that’s just nice to have. Every engagement that we facilitate includes an assessment of emotional intelligence and communication style. Using specialized tools, we build a custom plan that equips leaders to recognize their own emotional triggers and regulate their instinctive responses, replace unhelpful responses like defensiveness with inquiry and curiosity, practice character traits like empathy and clear communication (especially in high-stress situations), and apply received feedback to their own responses so that they develop over time into the kinds of leaders who can be vulnerable – the kinds of leaders who employees trust.
Move from Control to Connection with Arden Coaching
At Arden Coaching, we believe real leadership starts with real connection. Our executive coaching services help leaders develop the emotional intelligence, strategic communication, and trust-building behaviors that define the next era of leadership.
If you’re ready to lead from courage—not just certainty—we’re ready to partner with you.
Explore our services or schedule a consultation today.