How leaders can better help their employees

Jacob Morgan, author of ‘The Future Leader,’ joins TheStreet to explain why some leaders mistake being vulnerable for being weak.

Transcript

00:00So, when we think about some of the things that leaders do for employees, I think there

00:03are a couple missteps that leaders frequently make.

00:07One is they assume that they cannot be vulnerable at work.

00:10They assume that vulnerability is a sign of weakness, they assume that if you're vulnerable

00:13at work, people are going to view you as being incompetent.

00:16And so I recently wrote a book called Leading with Vulnerability.

00:19And I talked to 100 CEOs and surveyed 14,000 employees, and really dove deep into the subject

00:26of vulnerability.

00:27And what I found is that the ideal thing that a leader can do is not just be vulnerable

00:32at work, but combine vulnerability with leadership or competence with connection.

00:37So very simple example of this might be, instead of saying, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, which

00:42is being vulnerable, you add the leadership to it.

00:44So you might say, I'm sorry, I made a mistake.

00:47But here's what I learned from that mistake.

00:48And here are three things that I'm going to do going forward to make sure that mistake

00:52doesn't happen again.

00:53So as a leader, don't be scared to show emotion or vulnerability.

00:57But at the same time, when you're doing that, add leadership to that mix, add competence

01:01to that mix.

01:03I think that's a very, very important thing for leaders to do.

01:06And second, I think we're seeing a massive change as to the types of leaders we're seeing

01:14in organizations.

01:16And there are a lot of different attributes and skill sets that I think we're starting

01:19to see much more of.

01:21So these are things like thinking like a futurist, being a coach, leading with vulnerability

01:26as I talked about.

01:27And I think a lot of it centers around human centric leadership.

01:31And so what that means is creating a corporate culture in an organization where you don't

01:37assume that employees need to work there, but creating an environment where people actually

01:42want to work there.

01:43And that I think is a very big shift in the minds of a lot of leaders out there.

01:47And they're trying to figure out how to actually do that.

01:50And all of that starts by having conversations with your employees and treating them like

01:54human beings and not just as workers.