Modeling Imperfection

Leaders demonstrate vulnerability

Early on our leadership journeys, many of us think that leadership is about being the toughest, smartest, most knowledgeable, etc. As we advance on that journey, we might begin to realize that if we are the smartest, most knowledgeable person in the room, we’re in the wrong room. We almost always have people on our teams who know more and can do more than us. However, most of us never realize that being willing to admit that we don’t have all the answers is only the first step in demonstrating great leadership through being vulnerable.

Vulnerability in leadership is often misunderstood. Too many equate it with fragility or incompetence, assuming that showing uncertainty or admitting mistakes undermines authority. But in reality, vulnerability is one of the most powerful tools a leader has for building trust, deepening relationships, and fostering a culture of continuous learning. It is not a soft sentiment; it is a deliberate and strategic practice.

Dr. Brené Brown, whose work on vulnerability and leadership has reshaped the conversation in boardrooms around the world, puts it plainly: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.” In her book Dare to Lead, Brown describes how leaders who are willing to be vulnerable, by asking for help, owning failures, or saying “I don’t know”, model the kind of emotional courage that encourages authenticity and unlocks high performance.

Take Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, as a modern case study. When he took the helm in 2014, Microsoft was still operating under the shadows of its earlier command-and-control culture. Nadella made empathy and openness core to his leadership style. In interviews and public talks, he’s often spoken about how parenting a child with special needs changed his perspective, helping him grow more attuned to the emotional landscape of others. Under his leadership, Microsoft shifted from a culture of know-it-alls to one of learn-it-alls, a change that directly fueled innovation, collaboration, and market resurgence. The company’s stock tripled in his first five years, and its internal culture scores improved dramatically. Nadella’s willingness to bring his full self to the role, imperfections and all, became a competitive advantage.

Another striking example comes from Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and former president of Walt Disney Animation Studios. In his book Creativity, Inc., Catmull describes how he and his leadership team intentionally shared failures and vulnerabilities with their creative staff. They even held “Braintrust” meetings where candid feedback was not only encouraged but required. Catmull recounts how the original version of Toy Story 2 was so broken that the team had to scrap much of it and start over. Rather than conceal the struggle, leadership was transparent about the failure, and, in doing so, gave everyone permission to acknowledge missteps and try again. The result? A film that became one of the highest-grossing animated sequels of its time.

These leaders didn’t lead by pretending they had all the answers. They led by showing they were still learning. These examples show a common truth: vulnerability from leaders doesn’t cause people to doubt them. It causes people to believe in them. It signals humility, humanity, and a willingness to grow. And in today’s fast-moving world, where innovation depends on experimentation, and experimentation depends on psychological safety, being the kind of leader who can say, “I’m not sure, but let’s figure it out together,” is not just admirable. It’s essential.

Psychological safety is not created by policies. It doesn’t emerge from a slide deck or an offsite. It starts with how leaders behave, especially when things go wrong. When leaders model openness, curiosity, and humility, they create a signal that it's safe for others to do the same. Without that permission, people default to self-protection. They withhold ideas. They hide mistakes. They nod along while quietly disengaging.

Dr. Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School, who coined the term “psychological safety,” defines it as a shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. In her research, she found that teams with high psychological safety are more likely to admit errors, ask for help, and offer ideas, exactly the conditions required for innovation and growth. And the number one predictor of whether psychological safety exists on a team? Leadership behavior.

When a leader says, “I don’t know, what do you think?” or “That was my mistake, here’s what I learned,” they make it okay for others to take off their armor. Contrast that with the leader who blames, deflects, or micromanages in moments of stress. That kind of leadership stifles experimentation and guarantees one thing: people will keep their heads down and play it safe.

Google’s Project Aristotle, an internal initiative to understand what made teams effective, arrived at a surprising conclusion. The best teams weren’t the ones with the most talent or the most structure. They were the ones where people felt psychologically safe. In interviews, team members described being able to speak up without fear of embarrassment or retribution. They knew their ideas, and even their failures, would be met with respect. The common thread in those high-performing teams? Leaders who modeled vulnerability and invited others to challenge them.

Creating psychological safety doesn’t mean avoiding hard conversations or lowering standards. It means establishing a foundation of trust so that people are willing to stretch, fail, and try again. Leaders do this by listening more than speaking, by encouraging dissenting opinions, and by treating mistakes as opportunities to learn, not liabilities to punish.

When leaders show that it's safe to be imperfect, they unlock the full potential of their teams. People speak up earlier. They admit when they're stuck. They collaborate more deeply. And most importantly, they move faster, not because they’re rushing, but because they’re no longer stuck in fear.

The most resilient organizations aren’t the ones that avoid problems. They’re the ones that surface problems quickly and solve them together. That speed, that honesty, that trust, it all starts at the top. With a leader who is willing to go first.

The idea of “failing fast” has become a staple of modern innovation culture, especially in startups and tech. But failing fast isn’t really about failure, it’s about learning quickly. It’s about trying something new, seeing what works, and adjusting before too much time or capital is wasted. And at the heart of that process is vulnerability.

You cannot build a fail-fast culture without leaders who model vulnerability. Why? Because failing fast requires acknowledging uncertainty, experimenting openly, and sharing what didn’t work. It demands a team environment where people feel safe saying, “This idea didn’t land,” or “We launched the wrong feature,” or “I missed the mark.” That’s only possible when leaders are the first to admit, “We got it wrong.”

Consider the early days of Amazon Web Services. In interviews, former VP of AWS, Charlie Bell, has spoken about how Jeff Bezos encouraged teams to move fast, even if it meant getting things wrong. One example is the infamous Fire Phone. It was a bold move, one that ultimately failed in the market. But internally, Bezos didn’t punish the team. Instead, he framed the $170 million write-down as “tuition.” The company learned from the failure and redirected resources toward more promising initiatives like Alexa and Echo. A culture of learning was preserved because leadership framed failure not as a dead-end, but as a valuable data point.

Similarly, Netflix has long embraced a “freedom and responsibility” model, where employees are trusted to take risks and make decisions independently. Reed Hastings, co-founder and former CEO, has said that one of the biggest innovations at Netflix was not a product, but the culture itself, one that actively encourages candor and tolerates intelligent failure. In No Rules Rules, Hastings explains how this culture allows Netflix to move quickly and learn constantly. Mistakes aren’t buried; they’re examined. That’s only possible because leaders go first in acknowledging what didn’t work.

This fail-fast mindset is fundamentally incompatible with perfectionism. Teams don’t take risks when they’re worried about appearing foolish or incompetent. They take risks when they trust that the goal is learning, not blame. And that trust comes from leaders who are vulnerable enough to show that they, too, are learning in real time.

When leaders hide behind bravado or act as if every decision must be right the first time, they choke off experimentation. They create a culture where teams seek permission instead of progress. But when leaders treat setbacks as a natural part of the process, when they say, “This was a swing and a miss, but here’s what we learned”, they model the very agility they want from their teams.

In a rapidly changing world, speed of learning is more valuable than initial correctness. Vulnerability, then, becomes the gateway to organizational resilience. It fuels the feedback loops that power growth. It builds teams that can recover, adapt, and improve, fast.

Trust is not built in grand gestures. It’s built in small, consistent acts, especially the ones that happen when nobody’s watching. And the most powerful act a leader can take to build trust? Being open. About what they’re thinking. About what they’re unsure of. About what they’ve learned the hard way. That kind of openness, real, grounded, and human, does more to shape a culture than any values statement on the wall.

Teams thrive when they believe their leaders are in it with them, not above them. This doesn’t mean oversharing or broadcasting every emotion. It means leading with honesty, asking for feedback, and admitting when something didn’t go as planned. It’s saying “I need your help,” not as a performance of humility, but because you genuinely value what others bring.

In practice, this looks like a leader opening a team meeting by sharing a recent mistake and what they learned from it. It looks like a senior executive asking their team, “What am I missing?” and sitting in the silence long enough for real answers to surface. It looks like inviting dissent, celebrating constructive disagreement, and removing the fear that saying the hard thing will cost someone their seat at the table.

Leaders at IDEO, the design firm renowned for its creativity and experimentation, intentionally structure their teams and workflows to reward openness. Project teams hold regular “feedback sessions” where anyone, regardless of title, can critique ideas, identify weaknesses, and suggest new directions. This radical candor isn’t possible without psychological safety, and psychological safety doesn’t exist unless leaders go first in showing that criticism isn’t just tolerated, it’s desired.

Trust and openness also scale through storytelling. When leaders share formative moments, times they failed, misread a situation, or had to change their mind, they give others permission to be imperfect too. These stories help normalize growth. They send a quiet but powerful message: You don’t have to have it all figured out to contribute here.

Openness is also about consistency. If a leader responds to bad news with anger or defensiveness, it teaches people to hide information. If they react with curiosity and a steady hand, it invites honesty. Over time, these moments add up. A culture where people can speak freely, share half-formed ideas, or challenge assumptions without fear is a culture that moves faster, solves problems earlier, and builds deeper loyalty.

Creating this kind of environment is not about perfection, it’s about presence. It’s about showing up authentically, even when you’re unsure. Especially when you’re unsure. Teams don’t need flawless leaders. They need leaders who show what it looks like to lead while learning. That’s what creates trust. That’s what creates openness. And ultimately, that’s what unlocks the full creative and collaborative potential of a team.

When leaders choose vulnerability, when they admit mistakes, ask for help, and share what they’re learning, they do more than model humility. They shift the entire emotional architecture of the organization. The payoff is not abstract. It’s practical. Measurable. Cultural.

Teams with vulnerable leaders become more resilient because they stop wasting energy pretending. They don’t tiptoe around uncertainty or hide behind bravado. They face reality faster. They recover from setbacks faster. They learn and adapt in real time.

These teams become more innovative because they feel safe taking risks. They know their ideas won’t be punished, even if they don’t work. They don’t wait for perfect answers, they test, adjust, and move. Speed of iteration becomes the default. Progress becomes habitual.

They become more loyal, too. Because when people feel seen, not just for what they produce, but for who they are, they invest more of themselves. They speak up. They stay. They grow.

Most importantly, these teams become more human. Because they’re led by someone who shows them it’s okay to be human. In a business world still full of polished surfaces and airbrushed authority, leaders who model imperfection stand out. They feel real. And real builds trust.

If you want a team that learns faster, collaborates better, and sticks together through difficulty, you don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. You need to be the most present. The most honest. The most open.

The kind of leader who says, “I don’t know, but I’m willing to figure it out with you.” That’s not weakness, that’s leadership.