When we work with leadership teams to create greater alignment and higher performance, we almost always include some type of assessment tool that every team member must take. Once the reports are in, we have each member share their results with the rest of the team.
This is part of what we call “building vulnerability trust” and is one of the cornerstones of alignment.
What Is “Vulnerability Trust”?
Vulnerability trust is different from “trusting that someone will do what they say they will do”, which should be a given at the executive levels of leadership.
Instead, it means that the leadership team members are willing to be open and honest about who they are. This includes admitting and discussing not only their strengths, but also their challenges and blind spots.
We use assessment tools to create the opportunities and the common language for them to do so, right from the very start.
The tendency is usually to want to hide the not-so-good feedback. However, that is like running around your backhand in tennis. It might work for the short term, but you cannot scale your leadership impact that way. Just like in tennis, you will inevitably get caught by what challenges you.
Through vulnerability trust, we encourage the leaders to bring their weaknesses to the executive table and ask for help when in a tough spot. In so doing, the team learns to support each other. They don’t see themselves as competing against one another but working as one group towards the same goals.
The Impact of Talking Openly About Each Other’s Assessments
We recently worked with an executive team that had taken The Leadership Circle 360 assessment. The team leader had some very high reactive scores, which signaled behaviors that could get in the way of the team’s engagement and performance.
When the group shared their feedback, she was completely candid about her patterns of micromanaging the team’s work and made the commitment to keep these patterns in check. In fact, she even asked the team to support her, inviting them to speak up if they noticed her leaning into those behaviors.
The impact of the team leader owning her challenges so openly and asking for help was profound.
The team went through their assessment results slowly and thoughtfully. They each spoke about what they were proud of in their feedback and shared what they were committed to do to increase their contribution towards the leadership team and their direct reporting teams.
Preparing the Team for This Level of Sharing
These are not easy conversations but the safe space we create from the start of the engagement makes them possible.
Before the team meeting, each member has a one-on-one meeting with a coach to review and digest their assessment results. We then help them prepare what they are going to share with the team and how.
Here is another example
After two years of restructuring, the leadership team at a large insurance company was humming like a well-oiled machine. Everyone was aligned with their new operating approach. There was a potential issue though. The team VP and leader is what the Kolbe System™ calls a Quick Start: she has an innate talent for always seeking new ways of working. It’s how she naturally solves problems and initiates action.
During the team discussions, she recognized that her approach was having a negative impact on the team and their new structure. The honesty and dialogue that followed were key for the team to move forward.
Her sharing helped team members understand their leader’s natural inclination instead of getting frustrated with it. They then agreed to identify the instances when her approach might not be helpful, so they could have honest and productive conversations about it.
Using Assessments To Increase Team Support
The more your team practices embracing vulnerability trust, the easier it gets for the members to collaborate, help each other, and resolve their differences so they can keep working in support of the company’s strategic goals.
Could your team benefit from embracing vulnerability trust and learning how to be comfortable sharing their individual challenges with each other? If so, let’s talk.
