Why Do We View Vulnerability In Others As A Strength But Vulnerability In Ourselves As A Weakness?

There is some fascinating research that explains why this phenomenon occurs and how to combat it so that you can view vulnerability in yourself as a strength to be unleashed instead of a weakness.

Hello leaders!

Imagine you are meeting with your team and in that meeting you have to come forward with a mistake that you made on an important client project. How would that make you feel? 

Now imagine that someone else on your team was in your position, and they were the ones admitting they made a mistake. How do you perceive them?

Anna Bruk, Sabine G. Scholl, and Herbert Bless of the University of Mannheim in Germany published a study in 2018 called “Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability” which explores this idea. In fact, Dr. Bruk, is one of the many psychologists and researchers that I interviewed for my latest book, Leading With Vulnerability.

Researchers asked participants to imagine themselves in a variety of vulnerable situations including admitting to making a crucial mistake at work or being the first to apologize to a romantic partner after a big fight. The fascinating thing is that when people imagined themselves in these situations they perceived themselves as being rather weak or inadequate, which is the #1 reason that keeps people from being vulnerable at work according to the almost 14,000 employees I surveyed with DDI.

However, when participants imagined other people being vulnerable in these situations, they perceived them as being relatively “strong” and “courageous.”

Why?

In today’s post I’ll explore the why and in part two for next week I’ll explore what to do about it so that you won’t see your vulnerability as a weakness.

So…why do we think of other people as being strong and courageous when they are vulnerable and think of ourselves as being weak and inadequate when we are vulnerable?

The answer is a theory in psychology that we don’t spend enough time talking about, especially at work, and for leaders.

Learn more about this in my new book, Leading With Vulnerability which is now on sale on Amazon for a whopping 30% off while supplies last.