TIP 4: Vulnerability = authenticity = approachability

Crazy as it sounds, one of the best things that happened to me in my career was also one of the worst things.  There was a very challenging period in my career when my portfolios significantly underperformed the benchmarks.  In about six weeks my portfolios lost just about all the excess value that was added in my prior ten years.  

This was a hugely stressful and challenging time, but also was a great learning experience leading to new wisdom and character development.   From that experience, I developed a “lessons learned” document that provided me with deep investment and leadership wisdom for the remainder of my career.  Even more important, it humbled me as a leader, helping me to become a more vulnerable and authentic leader.  This significantly altered the way I related to others on my team, within the company, and more broadly in life. 

Proverbs 11:2 says “  When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.”  This is exactly what I discovered during that year and the years following. 

Think about the people you go to when you’re in need of help.   It’s not the person with the huge ego and all the answers.  It’s the person with a dose of humility, who has been through some trials, and as a result has a listening ear with an attitude of compassion and understanding. That’s the person who is approachable because you sense they will listen and not judge you, and they will provide the help you need. 

That’s what I learned from my experience.  I was brought down a few rungs in my own estimation.  I was humbled.   I also developed great appreciation for my bosses and the company who looked through my challenging time to my potential, and to the leadership and investment lessons I learned from the experience. 

In the following years, I was pretty open about sharing the challenges of those years, the lessons learned, and how I was changed as a result. The interesting thing is, the more I shared and was vulnerable, the more others were attracted to my leadership. I became more approachable through my vulnerability, and I became more understanding of the challenges others face because of the example of the understanding that others showed me during my difficult period. That vulnerability and the lessons learned also led to a number of significant new leadership opportunities with the company over the following fifteen years.

The lesson learned here is to look not only at the lessons learned during the tough times, but also at the changes in your character.   But don’t stop there!  Be vulnerable about sharing the challenges of those tough times and you will become more approachable to others and will have greater opportunities to impact them for their development and for your organization’s good.