Vulnerability Management: Required course for leaders?

Birute Regine, EdD is the author of “Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World.” She previously co-authored the critically acclaimed “The Soul at Work: Embracing Complexity Science for Business Success” with her husband, noted science writer Roger Lewin. She earned her doctorate in human development at Harvard and has spent 25 years as a psychologist in private practice and now works as an executive / life coach, facilitator, speaker and author.

I was having dinner with a friend, a very successful consultant, whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while. As we munched on a Caesar salad, I talked about my research on successful women. “I asked myself, what did these women, from many walks of life, share in common?” I told my friend. “What I discovered really surprised me. And because it surprised me, I knew I could trust this finding. A secret to these women’s success, I realized, had to do with how they dealt with vulnerability, their own and others’. They were able to transform vulnerabilities into strengths.” My friend leaned back in his chair and said, “You better not use that word with leaders. No leader wants to talk about vulnerability! They won’t go there.”

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Are You Strong Enough To Be Vulnerable? with Birute Regine – show 40

“The key to personal and social transformation is to see our vulnerabilities in a different light,” says the author of Iron Butterflies, Birute Regine. It takes “profound openness” she says to be strong enough to be vulnerable. Don’t you love that? Strong enough to be vulnerable.

“Soft is the new hard,” Birute playfully puts it. Her mission is to transform the meaning of vulnerability. “Our vulnerabilities will be our spiritual guides. They will show us and lead us to new strengths.” I couldn’t agree with her more.

In my own personal life, it took me years of peeling off the layers of ego to be vulnerable enough to be truly human. Vulnerability has nothing to do with weakness. In fact, it takes a strong, courageous woman to let her hair down, and her defenses, and be open to what’s present in any given moment. That is a leadership quality I want to practice more, to master. I believe this very quality is key to a peaceful and prosperous world. What other “soft” qualities do you think are needed?

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