Leading with Vulnerability
Listen: “We Can Do Hard Things” by Tish Melton
Each time I speak publicly, I feel like I am ripping myself open, exposing my most shame-filled experiences, and offering a gift of honesty and vulnerability which hopefully gives people the permission to be honest and vulnerable about their own struggles. I have learned that honesty and vulnerability are not only crucial to emotional healing and recovery; they are also crucial to courageous leadership.
It’s not necessary for everyone to share their most shame-filled moments in a public fashion. Most people simply need to get honest and vulnerable with a trusted circle of friends, family, and therapists and transfer the healing they receive into grace-based living. I happened to be a person who was a semi-public figure (a mega-church pastor) whose most shame-filled failure was published on the front page of The Kansas City Star Sunday Edition and then broadcast around the world by religious news feeds (December 6, 2018). After confessing to my wife in private in November 2018, certain people decided to broadcast my most shame-filled failures quickly and publicly without interviewing me. I was isolated in rehab for 120 days in Georgia while other people were telling my story publicly without my knowledge. Some were even slandering me privately. The public story? I was an Addict, an Alcoholic, and an Adulterer. In the words of sports announcer Dick Vitale—the Trifecta Baby!
I knew I would eventually have to tell my own story publicly, but I was buried in shame. After I returned home from 120 days in rehab, I felt like my world had exploded. (It had.) I felt like hiding or disappearing, but since I didn’t leave Kansas City I ran into people who knew me every day. In fact, I have run into a couple of thousand people over the last three years, and when appropriate, I have sought to make amends. After my divorce was finalized and my house was sold (July 2019), I decided to commit myself to attending a recovery group in September of 2019. For the next couple of years, I worked on my issues with groups, therapists, and friends (and still do).
In April of 2021, I spoke publicly for the first time since I resigned from Vineyard Church (February 2019). Since April of 2021, I have spoken at a few events, churches, a business men’s retreat, recovery groups, and done some podcast interviews. In each of these speaking engagements, I have been brutally honest about my forty year career as a pastor, the circumstances that led to my Xanax and alcohol abuse, the collapse of my marriage and ministry, and the process of recovery which I have undertaken. I recently spoke at the Healing House in Kansas City, Missouri (June 17, 2022), which is what sparked the reflections in this blog. There were about three hundred people in attendance who are courageously facing their own demons of addiction, living in a supportive community, turning their lives over to a Higher Power, and working the steps of recovery.
It’s not easy to tell my story because I still have a sense of shame about it. However, the shame is gradually healing and dissipating. The more I share it in public settings, the easier it gets. Every time I share my story in public, people are thankful for my courage. Oddly, many are inspired by my story. I have noticed the following responses from people:
Most people are grateful that I am being open and honest about my story, and they are more than willing to forgive me for my transgressions.
When I meet with people one-on-one, they are quick to open up and share their own struggles with me. People aren’t worried about me judging them. In fact, some people are strangely refreshed by my story. Not that they are delighting in the pain and shame I have gone through or the pain and disappointment I have caused others, but they are relieved to know that even “successful” pastors are human. No one is exempt from human frailties. They realize that they are not alone in their struggles.
When I share my story publicly, the atmosphere of the group changes. It gives people permission to get honest and vulnerable about their own struggles. Instead of putting on masks, faking plastic smiles, and posturing about their successful lives, people get real. The conversations change from impressing one another, to getting real with one another.
I think deep down, everyone wants to be loved and forgiven or loved and accepted for who they really are—beautiful flaws are a part of the human condition. However, most people are afraid they will be rejected and abandoned if people really knew them. So most people craft masks to wear, hiding their true self. Unfortunately, many family, church, and work cultures are shame-based. In shame-based cultures, people must hide their true self in order to keep their job or their standing in the community. Shame-based cultures promote hiding, posturing, backbiting, gossiping, judging, holier-than-thou hierarchies, and a cult of innocence. People get rejected and kicked to the curb when they get honest or fail to maintain the corporate image.
Brené Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability should be studied and implemented into every family, team, church, and organization on the planet. Seriously! Shame-based leadership, families, and organizations are devastating to humans and to our planet. In her book, Dare to Lead, Brené applies her research on shame and vulnerability to leadership. She believes that for any team or organization to be healthy, it must embrace: (1) rumbling with vulnerability; (2) living into our values; (3) braving trust; and (4) learning to rise. According to Brené, the heart of daring leadership is threefold:
You can’t get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability. Embrace the suck.
Self-awareness and self-love matter. Who we are is how we lead.
Courage is contagious. To scale daring leadership and build courage in teams and organizations, we have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation, and armor [shame-based masks] is not necessary or rewarded (Dare to Lead, p. 10-12).
People must feel safe, seen, heard, and respected, if they are to show up with their whole, unarmored hearts. Hiding our shame-based secrets only creates more shame and sickness. Shame is intrenched in our cultures and human psyches. Some cultures, families, and organizations are more shame-base than others. Shame can only be healed through honesty, vulnerability, grace, and love. Our families and organizations need a revolution of grace-based leadership rooted in courageous vulnerability.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2022
