When I first started my business, I thought that as the leader I had to know it all. I thought I was the one that had to have all the answers and give off the impression that I had it together at all times. 

How wrong I was. 

What I’ve learned about leadership is the strength and respect that comes from just being yourself; and I mean your crazy, weird, not-knowing-everything, unsure and, at times, really-scared self. 

Leadership isn’t just about your ability to make decisions and lead from the top. It’s about being humble enough to ask for help when you need it. 

Brave leadership is about understanding the areas in which you are really strong, the areas you need help, and the areas you need to upskill. It’s also about being confident enough in your own self worth to hire people who are better than you without feeling threatened, and being willing to ask for people’s input and allowing them to take the limelight when they come up with great ideas. 

Building up your own skill set and making sure that you are building a better version of yourself every single day is important. Part of that is learning how to be vulnerable, and learning the importance of compassion and empathy in the workplace, not just for the customers that you’re serving but for your team as well. 

You have to have those moments where the gloves come off, your guard comes down, and you say “this is hard”. 

It is okay to say: 

• I don’t have the answer. 

• I’m not sure what lies ahead but I’m here with you and we’re going to work through it together. 

• I’m not having a very good day today. 

• I’m having a hard time making this decision. 

Nothing has proved this more so than the global pandemic where we’ve all been put in situations as leaders where we haven’t known what is going to happen tomorrow. I’ve tried to embrace my vulnerability during this time and stay true to how I’ve been feeling in the moment. 

Some days you absolutely have to put on a brave face, do the press conference, make the communication announcement, support your team, be in control and show leadership. And other days you need to be able to say to your team “I’m scared too, but these are the tools that we have, this is the information we have and this is how we’re going to move forward”. And then follow that up by being willing to reach out to your team for their thoughts and their perspective to make some really great leadership decisions.

We won’t always get it right and that’s okay. 

Part of that vulnerability is being able to admit when you’re wrong, step up, have accountability for those moments and be able to say, “I made a mistake, I didn’t do this very well, these are the things I will work to improve on”.

I encourage you, as a leader, to think about the topics we’ve discussed over the past three weeks; The Value of Communication, Giving and Receiving Feedback, and Embracing Vulnerability, and consider how you can bring these learnings into your business to make yourself the best leader possible for your team.