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In today's episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we welcome Jacob Morgan, a four-time bestselling author and keynote speaker. Jacob shares insights from his latest book, "Leading with Vulnerability."

Jacob presents the critical role of vulnerability in leadership, the challenges leaders face in balancing competence and openness, and how organizations can create a culture that supports mental health and employee well-being. 

He also discusses practical strategies for leaders to effectively demonstrate vulnerability while maintaining their credibility.

🎓 In this episode, Jacob discusses:

1. Balancing vulnerability and competence as a leader

2. The importance of leading with vulnerability in the workplace

3. Practical strategies for integrating mental health support in organizations

4. The evolving expectations of employees and the role of well-being programs

DISCOVER WHAT EMOTIONAL SALARY MEANS – AND HOW YOU CAN MOTIVATE EMPLOYEES BEYOND PAY.

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The Achievers Workforce Institute reveals that two-thirds of employees have one foot out the door in 2024. The top reason for job hunting? Better compensation. But money isn’t the whole story. Employees are seeking not only monetary salary, but emotional salary too.

Jacob Morgan 0:00

Companies fault. It's the organization's fault. It's the leaders fault. What are you as a company doing about that? But how come we don't have more conversations around? What are you doing about this as a human being right? You're lonely? Great. What are you doing to solve that problem? Why is it the company's responsibility to fix your loneliness? Why is it the company's responsibility to give you purpose? And meaning? Why is it the company's responsibility to make sure that you're engaged? Make sure that you're learning and growing and developing? Why is it the company's responsibility to make sure that you have a friend putting all of that practice is what I mean, when I say companies are becoming parents, it's not realistic. And so we need to give more accountability and responsibility to employees, you're lonely. What are you doing when you get home after work? What are you doing on the weekends? You don't have purpose? And meaning? What are your personal values that you care about? Are you even at the right company? Like why did you take this job?

Chris Rainey 0:53

Take it Welcome to the show. How are you my friend?

Jacob Morgan 0:55

Good. Thank you for having me.

Chris Rainey 0:57

Good. It's good. It's what hasn't been like a year, since we last spoke

Jacob Morgan 1:00

a little bit more. Really? I think so fine.

Chris Rainey 1:03

How you been? Every time I speak to you, you're always you've gotten there's another book coming out, you got a million projects. I'm like, How do you do it? How do you continuously disrupt Jacob?

Jacob Morgan 1:16

Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of fun with that stuff. So there's a new book that I'm working on for next year on employee experience. I don't think I've actually shared this with anybody yet. So your group might be the first ones that are hearing it, you'll be around this time next year. So still still a ways away? I mean, haven't even started writing it just doing interviews a

Chris Rainey 1:37

lot? Well, and that's why I love about your work is that you take the time to do the interviews, too, unless you can't skip that process. And there's no quick way to do that. I don't think people really understand how much work goes into that pot. Right?

Jacob Morgan 1:51

It's a lot. I mean, as you know, you interview a lot of people as well. But yeah, I mean, it takes time to set up the interviews, have the conversations know what to ask. And, and if you have a bunch of conversations, you got to look for the trends, the responses, the stories, follow up with all of them. So it's, it's a lot of work, but I learned a lot from it. And then I think it also gives a lot of credibility. You know, one of the challenges that I have with a lot of books, whether it's leadership or employee experience books, is oftentimes they're based around like one or two companies, or one or two stories. And somebody will write a book and say, Apple is great. Here's why Apple is amazing. Or here's why Microsoft is amazing. And most people who read that are like, I'm not Apple, and I'm not Microsoft, I'd love to hear what somebody in construction is doing or somebody in finance. So I like different perspectives, different companies, different industries, different geographies, it kind of makes it a little bit more, more real. Yeah,

Chris Rainey 2:39

you're 100% need that diversity of four. And as you mentioned, a cultural nuance that also comes along with it. One of things I was really happy to see, and I'm glad I was able to talk about it today is the book that you you released, leading with vulnerability. And it's really interesting, because I mentioned just before we jumped on the call, I just got back from our sanctuary roundtable in New York, that was high on the agenda. Amongst really Yes, which was a surprise, to me a pleasant surprise for six rows. And in fact, we ended up doing a session led by Keith Ferrazzi, I'm not sure if you know of keeps work where, yeah, where we spent time going around the table. And as you know, this is the one where ones just met each other and sharing some of the things that we're having challenges with, and sort of starting the conversation, setting the foundation of the two day event by leading with vulnerability. And it created a completely different dynamic, and really helped the next few days. And I just thought it was really cool. And I was really when I first saw it, you first mentioned you're releasing a book, I was like, I'm really excited.

Jacob Morgan 3:44

Sounds like all those attendees need a copy of leading with vulnerability.

Chris Rainey 3:47

I'll send you the list. So you can get some over to them. Why did you write that book? Why, why why? To give it up? Because you've always got a good reason behind going on these. Yes. What was around that topic that you were like, hey, I need to really spend some time on this. Well,

Jacob Morgan 4:03

you know, the concept of vulnerability is not new Brene Brown obviously pioneered a lot of the concepts and research into this, what, 15 years ago now. But as I was working in a previous book called The future leader, I was interviewing 140 CEOs for that book. And the concept of vulnerability was coming up a lot from those interviews. But ch er of CEOs were conflicted with a few different things. Number one, they all understood the power of vulnerability in their personal life. So with a friend, a family member, a spouse a significant other, why you would want to be vulnerable with them. And it because it's because it creates connection, relationships and builds trust. But a lot of these leaders were also telling me that at work, there's a different dynamic, because in your personal life, it's one thing but at work, you have leaders you have employees, you have projects, deadlines, you're being paid a salary you have a team there's a hierarchy is vulnerability at work the same as it is out Oh, and the second piece of this is, is vulnerability for leaders the same as it is for everybody else. In other words, if you're a top executive at your company and you're being vulnerable is that the same as opposed to you just started working at the company for a few weeks or months, and you're being vulnerable. And so I kind of stored that information away, I didn't do anything with it. And then a couple years went by, and it was time to start brainstorming a new book. And I kind of went back to that. And I thought it would be really interesting to explore vulnerability, but specifically from a leadership and from a work perspective, because that is something that I haven't seen done before. So I interviewed 100 CEOs for the new book, we did a survey of 14,000 employees, with leadership from DDI and came up with a lot of I think, very interesting, unique perspectives on vulnerability at work. And the biggest insight from everything. counterintuitive to everything that we're talking about now is don't be vulnerable at work, really. And yes, and it's all explained, yeah, severe, very, very different. So what I mean by that is, when most people think of the concept of vulnerability, they think about exposing a gap that they have a gap and experience in intelligence, in wisdom, in capability in whatever it is. And so you're basically saying, Hey, there's this gap that I have, and I'm sharing it with you. And you can use that against me, right? I mean, it's, it's something that you put out there, or you acknowledge something. And when you do that other people have the potential to use that against you if they want to. So for a lot of us, that's fun. Most of us think of vulnerability at work is you share or do something that exposes a gap that you have. Leading with vulnerability, on the other hand, on the other hand, is about exposing a gap that you haven't been demonstrating what you're trying to do to close the gap. This is the right approach inside of the workplace. So a very classic example that I always use is, let's say you work for a leader, and they give you a really important project to do, and you mess up the project. Now, being vulnerable means that you go to your leader at the time and say, Hey, I know how important this project was, I am so sorry, I messed this up. That's a very vulnerable thing to say, You got to look your leader in the eye. And you got to say that. And it's good to have the psychological safety inside your organization to be able to do that. But if you go to your leader and say that there's not a leader in the world, who's going to look at you and say, Gee, thank you for telling me that a lot of the leaders are gonna look you and they're gonna say, Well, what are you going to do about it, the customer is still unhappy, the deadline has still not been met, the goals have still not been achieved, like, what are you going to do like, thank you that you brought the problem to me. But now what? So the concept of leading with vulnerability is about exposing the gap that you have in demonstrating what you're trying to do to close it. So in that same situation, if I make a mistake, and I screw something up, the right way to approach it would be Hey, I know how important this project was, I'm so sorry, I made a mistake. Here's what I learned from the mistake, here's three things that I'm going to do going forward to make sure that that mistake doesn't happen again, here's some options that I have for how I can try to remedy this problem going forward. That's different. That is what is needed in the workplace. Because again, it's a different dynamic, you have a salary, you're being paid to do a job that you were hired to do. So it's not that vulnerability on its own is bad. But we need to add the leadership piece, the competence piece to that vulnerability. And when we asked 14,000 employees, we said, What's the number one reason why you are not vulnerable at work. And the number one response was, I don't want to be perceived as being weak or incompetent in front of my team. Well, if you don't want to be perceived as being weak or incompetent, then add the competence to the vulnerability. Don't just talk about the weakness, or the incompetence or the mistake, add what you're doing to close the gap. And that's the big distinction. And the big difference. And why I tell everybody don't just be vulnerable at work, but instead of lead with vulnerability is

Chris Rainey 9:03

so interesting. So that you gave me a flashback to a moment when I was maybe like 2223. And I walked into my CEOs office to have a conversation. I can't remember exactly what I did wrong or what it was. But I remember, Maria said to me, next time come with a solution. Yeah. And I was like, what I'm trying to tell you that I need help and being vulnerable, etc. And she was like, great, but don't, it was a bit more harsh than that. It was don't ever come back at my office without a solution. But to your point, it was a good point, you know, and I never did ever, ever again. So I was like, whenever I brought something like that to the table I came back with and actually this is what I'm doing about it to your point, as well. And

Jacob Morgan 9:46

that's it's a huge, huge distinction, and it will dramatically change how people perceive you. It will dramatically change the teams that you're able to create and I think it will also help you become more successful inside your organ. As a nation, because if you think about it, so there's a concept in psychology called the pratfall effect, and I interviewed the creator of this, his name is Elliot Aronson. He used to teach at the University of California, Santa Cruz, which is where I went to school. And when I spoke with him, he told me that so the concept of pratfall effect is basically, let's say, you're really good at your job, you're very capable. And now you make a mistake. And you admit to that mistake, what happens is a lot of people look at you, and they say, Oh, wow. So and So made a mistake, but they're really good at their job, now you get a little bit of a one plus one equals three effect. Because people already knew you're really good at your job, they knew you're really talented. And now that you're adding the vulnerability, you're adding the human component there. And so now people think that you're even more likable, more capable, more talented, more relatable. But the flip side of that is also true. If you are not good at your job, and you're not demonstrating that you're trying to close those gaps, you're not demonstrating that you're trying to get better. And you keep just showing up talking about your vulnerabilities. I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I need help here. I wasn't feeling well, sorry, I'm late. If you just keep doing that all the time. What happens is it reinforces your mediocrity. In other words, a lot of people are gonna look at you, and they're gonna say, Yeah, I kind of get why you're not getting promoted, I get why

Chris Rainey 11:19

I can't rely on you. Yeah.

Jacob Morgan 11:21

So it creates that negative perception of you. So all of this is to show that there's no substitute for competence for being good at your job. And I think what a lot of people are doing whether inadvertently, or purposefully, is we sometimes use vulnerability as a way to justify poor performance. And that is not the right approach inside of an organization. So making mistakes, talk about vulnerability, but add the leadership or the competence piece to those types of discussions. Yeah.

Chris Rainey 11:50

Could you share the Hollis Harris example? Ah,

Jacob Morgan 11:54

yes, yeah, it's, uh, whenever I give a talk for a company, it's the story that I always open with. So the Hollis Harris story, he used to be the former CEO of Continental Airlines. And in the late 80s, in the early 90s, the airline was going through a lot of trouble, as we know, Continental Airlines absorbed by United Airlines now. But the company was going through a really hard time, and the board came to their CEO, Hollis Harris. And they said, Hey, you gotta like, send out a memo to the workforce, tell people what's gone on, communicate with them do something, because things aren't going well. And everybody's wondering what the hell's going on at the company. So he sends out this memo to his entire workforce, I think it was around 40,000 employees. And he talks about the challenges in the business, the macro and macro, the micro and macro economic factor is why the company is struggling this and that. And then he ends his memo by telling his employees that the best thing they could do is to pray for the future of the company. very vulnerable thing. He was fired the next day, because there was no leadership. So you know, and it makes a difference, right? Because let's say Hollis Harris was Joe in accounting. And Joe in accounting shows up to work and says, Oh, my God, the company is going down. I don't know what's happening. I pray for the future of the company. Somebody's probably gonna go up to Joe and accounting and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, why don't we go out for lunch? Take a day, relax, everything's gonna be fine. If you're an executive at the company, or CEO, and you show up to work, and you say, Oh, my God, the company's going down, what's going to happen? Blah, blah, blah, people will panic. Yeah, so vulnerability for a leader is not the same as for non leaders. And this was reflected to me by Doug Parker. He's the former chairman and CEO of American Airlines. And he told me that there were lots of times where he couldn't be vulnerable, like, especially during the pandemic, everybody was talking about how the airline was gonna go bankrupt. And he had to go in front of Congress and ask for money. And he told me that there would be many times where he would sit alone in his car, before he would go into the office. And he would try to pump himself up, say positive things, listen to positive music, like build himself up before he would walk into the office, because he needed to show that competence, the confidence he couldn't show any kind of vulnerability because people were looking to Him and relying on him and he you know, it was a very, very difficult time for the company. So when you're a leader, it's not the same as it is for when you're not a leader.

Chris Rainey 14:27

Yeah, I love that like and it's interesting because the even the words right we've seen words CEOs have just said to have just like, defected their share price by like, by literal billions, because they were in interview into said the wrong thing. And all of a sudden, now, Elon, Elon is a good character for for saying and doing certain things. He's a very, he's a brilliant mind. Sometimes you're in front of a microphone. Yeah,

Jacob Morgan 15:00

he's certainly an anomaly. And look, there's always exceptions to every rule. There's always somebody like an Elan out there who, you know, defies any kind of logic or leadership criteria.

Chris Rainey 15:11

Yeah. So we just spoke about, essentially vulnerability versus competence. But can you elaborate on why fungibility alone can make leaders seem incompetent?

Jacob Morgan 15:22

Sure. I mean, it kind of goes back to what we alluded to, right? If you were to imagine sort of a grid on an X and Y axis, and you have four boxes, and so on the x axis, imagine that you have a vulnerability and on the y axis, you have leadership. So the, at the box closest to the focal point, you're kind of a novice, you're a beginner, you haven't really charted your leadership trajectory yet. So you're deciding which path do I take more vulnerability, more leadership, or kind of somewhere in between? So if you only go down the path, and again, the x axis is vulnerability, so let's say you only really excel on vulnerability,

Chris Rainey 16:01

is this. Is this this honorable leader equation you're describing right now? Or is this different?

Jacob Morgan 16:04

No, no, no, it's a, it's a different one to solve honorable leader equation is probably the most important part of the book. And it's what I hope everybody remembers, and it's leadership plus vulnerability equals leading with vulnerability, you gotta have both leadership plus vulnerability, okay, sorry. And this box that I'm talking about kind of takes that and plots leadership and vulnerability on an X and Y axis. So same, same concept, but imagine it on an X and Y axis. And it kind of shows the relationship between the two. So if you, if you only focus on vulnerability, what's going to happen is people will look at you and they'll say, Well, you know, we have a great working relationship, great connection, great relationship, I like to hang out with this person, I feel like I can talk to them, we can collaborate, it's just, we have a really, really solid connection, which is important. But if I were to ask that same person, well, what do you think about that person's leadership abilities, their competence, they're gonna say, Well, you know, I have a great connection with them, but they probably shouldn't be in a leadership role, because they're just not demonstrating their competence. Now, similarly, let's say you only focus on competence, and not on the vulnerability piece at all. And I would go to one of the one of the employees works for you. And I'll say, What do you think of so and so they'll say, oh, man, this person, they're so good at their job, they're bringing in a lot of deals, they're making a lot of money, they're solving customer problems. But I don't really feel engaged or inspired by them, it's kind of hard to work with them, we don't really collaborate well, I don't feel that sense of connection with this leader. So they're really good at their job, but they're kind of a robot in the workplace. And I just, I, it's hard to work with them. And so this is why you need both, you want to be able to connect with the people that you work with and for. And you also want to know the people you're working with, and four aren't good at their job. And so if you only have vulnerability, people will view you as being incompetent. And if you only have leadership, people will view you as being a robot. And so if you're in between, you have leadership and vulnerability, now you're demonstrating you're good at your job, and you have the ability to connect with people. And those are fundamentally the two most important aspects of leadership. Are you good at what you do? Do you have the ability to connect with people that you work with and for or customers for that matter?

Chris Rainey 18:13

Now, love it. Where does wellbeing come into this equation? Because a lot about your ability in the conversations that I had, and you know, one of the things everyone listening to the show I've shared over the last couple of years is my own personal challenges with mental health with anxiety, you know, burnout, etc. And along the time I hid that, from my team, my, you know, my co founder, even my wife, and I shared that a couple of years ago, and kind of open it up to the conversation, which I was terrified of, you know, I like it to be seen this week, you know, am I going to be seen as a CEO that I don't want to work for? Am I gonna seen as a, you know, it was my daughter gonna think of me, and I do think that's improved all of my relationships, and build more trust with my team. But at the same time, when you know, just want to think we know, that's not competence, or when so where does that fit into your equation?

Jacob Morgan 19:10

Yeah, well being is. So I'm a little bit of a counter take on well being. And by the way, I also had a similar issue. So one of the we talked about why I wrote the book, On the business side and the personal side. I grew up not believing in vulnerability at that it was dumb. I thought it was stupid. I was raised by parents who came from the former USSR, so immigrant parents. My mom tried to teach me emotional vulnerability and openness. My dad was the exact opposite. Don't show emotion. Don't talk about your problems. Share your mistakes. Yep. I mean, even to this day, when I go visit my parents, my dad always says, Hey, come in the backyard. Let me see him any pull ups. You can do how many pushups you can do, like let's do a little fitness challenge. The dudes in his mid 70s, right? He's still trying to like, you know, do crazy stuff in the yard. So I didn't believe in any of that stuff. I thought it was completely dumb and So for me what happened is shortly after I signed the contract writing for this book, I had a series of panic attacks. And I don't know if you've ever had a panic attack.

Chris Rainey 20:08

I hit my panic attacks for 15 years I was having no. And I also didn't know what was happening to me. I was kind of

Jacob Morgan 20:16

the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. Because you the first time you have when you don't know what it is, you seem to die. Yeah, exactly. I felt like I was having a heart attack. And so you know, my bodies started convulsing a little bit like I had the shakes from the flu, my wife drove me to the emergency room. It was in the middle of a pandemic, nobody in the emergency room could see me I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. And then finally, I went to go in to see a doctor, like two weeks later, and I was just freaking out, I was like, I cried to my mom and my parents, and like, I think I'm dying, you got to take care of my kids, like, it was full on like nuts. And so I finally get into go see a doctor, she checks my heart and everything. And she's like, you're totally good. And she's telling me she's like, you know, you might want to go see like a brain doctor. I'm like, What are you kidding me? Like, you mean, I need to go talk to a therapist. This, of course, sure enough, I ended up talking to a therapist, and she told me, she's like, well, what's going on in your life? You know, we're talking about my family a little bit. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm writing this book on vulnerability. She's like, you're, you're doing what? I said, Yeah, I'm writing this book on vulnerability. And so it became apparent that one of the reasons that I was having these panic attacks is because I was writing a book about vulnerability when I didn't believe in vulnerability. And I was forcing myself to be vulnerable, and to kind of go down that road. But mentally, my brain was like, you don't believe in this? You think it's stupid? Like, why are you doing this? And you know, panic attacks. So very, very unpleasant experience, as I'm sure you know, but it's funny, I shared this with my team. And I said, has anybody else experienced this? And you know, we have like, I think we had around nine or 10 people at the time. I think four or five other people on my team were like, Yeah, that's happened to me before. And so we were able to talk about it, which is, you know, nice to be able to relate to that. So getting back to well being, you know, there's a lot that we could talk about in this space, I have concerns about wellbeing programs. And the reason for that is because wellbeing programs are becoming a little bit like everything programs. So well being is basically doing anything and everything that you can do to take care of your people, whether it's free food gyms, whether it's access to a therapist, whether it is time off, regardless of what it is, right? It's basically like, we got to take care of you, whatever you need. And a lot of this happened during the pandemic, right. During the pandemic, a lot of people were freaking out, and companies invested heavily in heavily involving programs. And not necessarily that they we had bad intentions for them. But what my concern with these wellbeing programs is, it removes some of the accountability and responsibility from employees. So one of the things that I've kind of argued for a while is that a lot of your employees primarily care about four things. They want to be paid well, they want to work for a good leader, and they want to have learning and development opportunities. And they want to be able to grow inside your company. And you can add flexibility in there, too. A lot of the other stuff is kind of sprinkled on top. Right? But if you give employees those four core aspects of work, that they will want to be part of your organization, because a lot of the other stuff, purpose and meaning recognition that stems from those four things, if you work for a great leader, you're going to have those things. And so what I think is happening, and there's been an interesting book, several books, actually, one fairly recently called the anxious generation by Jonathan Hite, another one called the coddling of the American mind by Greg Lukianov. I believe that came out a few years ago also with Jonathan Hite is one of the co authors. And one of the things that they argue is that and it's not a book about work. It's a book about just parenting and life and kids and what's happening, society. And them and many other authors have argued that one of the reasons especially Gen Z is having a hard time is because what we've seen over the past few years is we coddled, our kids, whether you look at playgrounds, where there used to be a time when playgrounds used to have these big jungle gym, there was potential of getting hurt, right? You could climb up there, and now everything is very safe. Right? You walk by a playground, sometimes now they have rules where like, you know, you can't play football unless there's somebody supervising, no roughhousing, no this and everything is safe, everything is contained. As parents, we're teaching our kids, there's no such thing as a bad idea. You're great. You're amazing. And we're seeing that a lot of and there was an article that came out I think it was even published by Sherm that said that Gen Z is the least resilient, kind of least adaptive generation. And so we've put this generation and not just them but several others. We're in a in a safety box. And we're basically telling them, we'll take care of you everything is going to be fine. You don't want to be triggered, you don't want to feel unsafe, you don't want to get it right. safety bubble. And now what's happening is this generation is coming into the workplace. And what and I put this on Stubbs substack. Today, I said, our organization's becoming the new helicopter parents for Gen Z. So, in other words, is it as an individual, let's say, I don't take care of myself at all, I don't make time for friends, I don't have a social circle, I don't eat healthy, I don't exercise, I don't do any of the things that I should be doing to take care of myself. And I show up to work and I say, Hey, I'm lonely. I'm disengaged, I don't have purpose, I don't have meaning fix this for me. Now, that's not very healthy. So the big challenge that I think we're starting to see is organizations need to find a balance when it comes to wellbeing programs between what they are accountable and responsible for, versus the message that they give to their employees, as far as you're accountable, and you're responsible. I mean, because you still exist as a human being right? I mean, you still have to take care of yourself in some way. And again, it's not to say that these wellbeing programs are inherently bad, they all have good intentions. But I think what's happening is that companies are starting to become everything. And that's not sustainable. And so what's going to happen in a year in two years, and three years and four years and 10 years and 15 years, you know, I think, as well intentioned as these wellbeing programs are, we need to take a step back from them and say, Well, how are we helping employees become better versions of themselves? And by being accountable and responsible as what you see them saying, like, yeah,

Chris Rainey 26:46

they need to own like, they need to own it. Yeah, companies,

Jacob Morgan 26:50

companies are in danger of becoming parents, for their employees. And once you get into that role of being a parent, for your employee, it becomes very hard to go back. And I talked to a lot of CHR OHS about this, as I'm sure you have. And I always ask them, I say, you know, you introduce these programs, therapist counseling, whatever. I said, What do you think would happen if you started taking these programs away, and they said, oh, probably our employees would be upset. And so what happens is, when you introduce these things, it becomes very hard to take them away. It's like parenting, if you give your kids something, you know, it's like that story. If you give a mouse a cookie, they're gonna want some milk. If you give your kids something, and they get used to it, it becomes very hard to take it away. So we need to be just very, very thoughtful of the well being programs that we're offering, and how we're approaching that. Because we see, there was another recent survey that came out that said, 26% of Gen Z employees are now bringing a parent with them to work. I

Chris Rainey 27:46

couldn't believe when I heard the interviews you saw that shocked me when I saw Yeah, I was like, What's, and these

Jacob Morgan 27:52

are actually employees, who were their parents are speaking during the interview process away,

Chris Rainey 27:58

man, I was I always don't believe it. Like, I still haven't come to Thai.

Jacob Morgan 28:03

Yeah, it's crazy stuff. Right. And so a lot of things come out that show that Gen Z is not confident, they don't have the communication skills, they are struggling in a lot of these areas. And so part of it is, are we doing more harm? Or are we doing more good by telling employees show up to work, and we'll take care of everything for you. So again, I'm trying to be careful not to say that these programs are bad, but I think they need to be, they need to be done in a more thoughtful way. So for example, maybe companies can take a step back and say, well, we won't necessarily pay for all these things for you, but we'll make them available for you. And if you want to take advantage of them, while you're working here, you can do so you can pay for them, it will be a little bit of a discounted rate, but it's on you. And that way the employee needs to be more thoughtful, more discerning more, right, you have to opt in for it, as opposed to if you show up to work and say, hey, yeah, I know there's a counselor there. I'm kind of having a weird day. Let me let me just go talk to a therapist for a bit. Right, then it just becomes there's no accountability. Yeah, it's like, it's like having a pill that you can just take and you show up to work, and you're just popping that pill all the time. So we need to, you know, figure out what the right approach is. And part of it is how the programs are designed. Part of is the programs that we offer. Part of it is how we communicate these programs. And part of it is also just just general, talking to our employees and saying, Look, this is a culture where performance matters, where merit matters, how you do matters, we will do everything that we can to support you. But make no mistake that this is work. This is a company this is a business. And I'm not saying communicate it like that, but a little you know what I mean? Yeah,

Chris Rainey 29:49

I've seen companies and you may have probably spoke about some secretaries who have like their compensation and benefits. They even have an element tied to the health of the individual of the employee. So they'll say If you will do you know, medical and if you're this level of health, you get more, you get more access to resources, more access to benefits, more excellent access to things. And so they're encouraging it by inputting Yeah, and putting, I mean, sometimes they can go extreme but definitely some ownership on the individual to say, hey, we're not here to make you eat, sleep and drink healthy. Exactly

Jacob Morgan 30:23

doing fitness challenges, right leaders can do you know, if employees have Fitbit or Apple Watches, you say, hey, you know, I had to, I went on a crazy run today, this and that, or maybe have like a run club at work, you know, things that you can do that still make it fun and social and encourage it without saying like, Hey, here's everything for you. I hope you're okay. You know what I mean? Like, it's gotten too much in that area. Yeah, I want to question that. I

Chris Rainey 30:48

want to go back to my other point, Noma point in the beginning was, what are your thoughts then about CEOs, senior leadership, talking about their own struggles with mental health and well being, because then because that can, again, impact the the, the view of living, I can't say the company's name, I wish I could, but I got a call from a CH ro a couple months back and said, Chris, we're really struggling with the perception we have internally with mental health. And our CEO is refusing to talk about it. Even though even though that we know he's personally struggling, so we want to and many of us are, so we wanted to do you know, like an all hands, you know, webinar, etc, with the team and some of the leaders to be vulnerable and share, hey, we're also struggling, it's not just, you know, everyone else, even at the leadership and date flout refused. The CEO flout review for us to do it, right. For the reasons we described, doesn't want to be seen as vulnerable, doesn't want to shareholders to feel like, you know, do something wrong. And, and so, but what we ended up doing is actually getting some of the other executive team members to jump on a podcast with me. And we did the sort of short 20 minute podcast, and then we distributed them, but weekly, and there was a huge positive reaction, both from customers, investors, employees, and actually the CEO then kind of came around because he was oh, okay, it's not so scary. But I'm not saying that what's for everyone, it's just something we did. And it's a very large company that everyone listening knows of, I just can't say who it was because there's a private internal thing. So I wonder what your thoughts are on the CEO and leadership sharing that type of vulnerability, as opposed to a competence based vulnerability?

Jacob Morgan 32:27

Well, I still thinking you'd add leadership, any kind of vulnerability. So even if you're talking about mental health, if you're talking about the challenges and the struggles that you're faced with, but also talk about what you're trying to do to overcome them, okay? Right. You know, I struggle with anxiety or stress or panic of error, I had this and that, but here's what I'm trying to do to solve that problem. I'm trying to take care of myself, right? So it's not just, here's my problem. It's, here's my problem. Here's how I'm trying to solve my problem. Because I struggle with this just like everybody else. And so here's what I'm trying to do, here's what you might be able to do as well. That's a very different message than simply just talking about it. So but in general, I'm in favor of addressing challenges and obstacles and problems in any capacity. And I think one of the reasons why a lot of leaders are so uncomfortable with this is because they, they forget that other piece, they forget that leadership piece, they think that they just have to go in front of their company and say, Hey, I'm struggling with mental health and depression and anxiety and stress. I'm having a hard time showing up to work in the morning, and this and that. And yeah, if you just go in front of your company, and say that people are gonna look you and they're gonna say what the hell, this is the guy leading our company, yeah, like somebody who just has depression and stress and anxiety like it doesn't, it doesn't create, you know, a positive perception of you. But if you deliver that same message and say, hey, you know, sometimes I struggle with depression and anxiety and stress, but you know what I do to get over that, so that I can show up and be the best leader that I am every single day for you. Here's what I do, I try to make time for myself, I try to exercise and spend time with my wife, my kids, whatever, blah, blah, blah, here's what I'm doing. And even though I struggle with these problems, when I still show up to work every day, I'm able to do the things that I need to do. Sometimes I have bad days, sometimes I have really great days. But these are the strategies. Right? That's a very different message. That puts a, you know, adding that leadership piece, the competence piece in there, I think it makes a huge, huge difference. Yeah. So I think if leaders were more understanding in a way that they could do that we would be able to have more of these open conversations around it. And you know, the other challenge with and I so many stats, right? Burnout, stats, loneliness, stats, engagement, stats, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm always skeptical of those for a few reasons. Because if you look at a lot of them, there's never been a time where employees were not burned out. There's never been a time where engagement was super high. Right? What did it fluctuate by 2% 3% There has never been a time where all of these numbers were just amazing. And something happened. And these numbers all of a sudden became terrible. And we're trying to get back to those great numbers again, that time never existed. Overall, it's been relatively flat, depending on the number that you look at with some, you know, spikes and dips here and there. But that's just kind of been constant. And the assumption is always that it's the company's fault. It's the organization's fault. It's the leaders fault, like, what are you as a company doing about that? But how come we don't have more conversations around? What are you doing about this as a human being? Right? You're lonely? Great. What are you doing to solve that problem? Why are you out? Like, why is it the company's responsibility to fix your loneliness? Why is it the company's responsibility to give you purpose? And meaning? Why is it the company's responsibility to make sure that you're engaged? Make sure that you're learning and growing and developing? Why is it the company's responsibility to make sure that you have a friend, like, getting all of that practice is what I mean, when I say companies are becoming parents, it's not realistic. And so we need to give more accountability and responsibility to employees who are lonely. What are you doing when you get home after work? What are you doing on the weekends? You don't have purpose? And meaning, what are your personal values that you care about? Are you even at the right company? Like why did you take this job? Right, so there's not

Chris Rainey 36:15

enough? Do you feel like leaders are equipped to have those conversations? Well,

Jacob Morgan 36:19

it's not even the leaders need to have those conversations. It's people need to have those conversations with themselves. I get

Chris Rainey 36:25

that. But there is a role of obviously, you know, that being recognized. Yeah, I've had those conversations with employees before I've like I've, I've called them out on it, not call them out. But really just help them be like, hey, it's not on us. There's something there's something I can only do so much. Oh, my God, exactly. And so that was a challenge for me. And Shane first started the company, I felt that I did feel like assets of ownership for that. And I was like, I realize I'm never, I can't be responsible for someone else's happiness. You can't,

Jacob Morgan 36:55

you can't, it's not perfect. It's messy. It doesn't always work out well. So similarly, like I had somebody on my team that I worked with, and this was several years ago. And things started off well. And as the business grew, she had a lot of challenges. And she had a lot of struggles. And she would show up late for meetings, and she would say, oh, you know, my dog is sick. And she would show up late for another meeting and say, Well, you know, I couldn't do this I can do and it was time and time again. And it went on like this for months. And finally I came to her and I said, Look, I don't know what is going on in your personal life. It sounds like you're having challenges. It doesn't also sound and I always say, is there anything I can do? Can I help you? Should we move the meeting, you need to take it out, like whatever I can do, nothing would work. And so finally I came to her. And I said, Look, it seems like you're you have some challenges that you're going through. And these challenges are starting to negatively impact the business. And I've done everything that I could to try to help you. And I've also encouraged you. And I've told you that if you are not able to take accountability and solve your problems that, you know, we're gonna have a challenging time working together, and I had to let this person go. And it's true, right? Employees also need to be accountable and responsible for whatever it is, right. And so sometimes it's a tough love approach. But it's also important, I mean, I've had to be in that situation where I've had to work and I've had to hire babysitters, or I've had to find a nanny, or I've had to wake up at three in the morning or I had to go to bed at 10 or 11 o'clock at night, I had to do whatever I needed to do to be able to get the job done, because that is what was expected of me. And nobody cared about my excuses. And I'm not saying that there aren't certain situations and circumstances where we can't be more compassionate and empathetic. But I think at a certain point, we need to be able to have an honest conversation with our employees and say, Look, I get that you're going through a tough time, and I'm happy to help you in any way that I can. But ultimately, you need to do what you need to do to take care of yourself. Right. And it's an important message because otherwise leaders are going to crumble. I mean, imagine you lead a team of 50 people, and you have 50 employees who are showing up to work every day and all of a sudden you're the leader or the therapist, and everyone's coming to you I'm not engaged, I don't know purpose meeting, bla bla bla bla bla and you as leader like, whoa, what's happening here? Right? So I think leaders are equipped to have certain types of conversations, like we can talk about and say, hey, you know, I noticed that lately, maybe the quality of work is going down a little bit like are you okay? Are you going through a tough time? Is there anything I can do to help you like those types of conversations any human being can have just to try to be supportive and this and that. But I think if we start getting into this realm of like, you know, doom and gloom, I wake up every morning and I don't want to be here anymore. beaters are I don't think are equipped to have those types of conversations. Those are deeper, more serious conversations. So it's, it's tough, right? I and this is, like I said, it's messy. It's because human beings are messy. We're imperfect. We make mistakes. We fumble. We say the wrong things all the time expecting anything would be unreasonable. But I think we just need to have a much better balance of have employee accountability and responsibility versus what the organization does. And simply showing up to work, assuming your company is going to solve your problems is not not the right approach. And the one thing I do want, you might get some angry, you might get some angry comments after this. Right? You might get some angry emails from people that are saying, How dare Jacob this and that, blah, blah, blah. But look, it's the truth. It's

Chris Rainey 40:27

important. We have this conversation part part of the solving the problem is having this conversation that we're having right now.

Jacob Morgan 40:33

Yeah. If there's anything you disagree with, let me know. No, I,

Chris Rainey 40:37

I do think we've gone a step too far. I do agree. Like, I feel like, as I said, I've had conversations with with employees in the last couple of, you know, last 12 months, similar to what you described, where I've been, like, I've done everything I can, and I'm like, I feel like I'm responsible for this person's happiness. And I'm like, yeah, so important. I'm like, I've kind of offered helps enormous pressure, I've offered help, you've rejected it. I've offered help outside of the company. It's like, you know, expert, expert, help you've rejected it. I suffered now is starting to affect the workplace, like to your point in the US as a business. And I'm like, I felt like helpless. And I realized that to your point, I was like, I have not, I can't, I'm not responsible. I can't be held responsible for someone else's happiness, like, I'll do. I'll do as much as I can to help. But I genuinely. But I can't do that. And I do feel like organizations are taking on that burden. So I do agree with you. There are going to be special circumstances where there are mental health course where there are mental health challenges where there are other things that we do have to be careful when we talk about that. And it's so it's funny,

Jacob Morgan 41:43

if you ask a lot of CHR OHS, you know, why do you have these programs? I mean, I've asked a lot of CHR o says this, and I would say, Well, you know, what would happen? If you cut these programs? They'll say, Well, our competitors have it. And so I think one of the challenges because

Chris Rainey 41:55

of that. Yes, exactly.

Jacob Morgan 41:57

Yeah. And so the challenge is, it's a snowball effect where you better expect Yeah, yeah, your competitor does that. Therefore you have to do it. Yeah, and your competitor when I'm suing you. And so what happens is, collectively, as an industry, as HR as organizations, we're trying to one up each other with these different types of wellbeing programs and perks to the point where it becomes almost unsustainable. And once the HR that I interviewed, she said, you know, over the past few years, we didn't realize it, but we've created a company for children. And now we're trying to create a company for adults. And I think that is sort of a pivotal shift. And another CHR This is a CH ro from TELUS. She gave me this great analogy. She said, one of the reasons why a lot of companies get wellbeing programs wrong, is because they think about it in terms of programs instead of in terms of culture. And she said, The best approach that you can do is have a well being culture,

Chris Rainey 42:44

because then people don't rely on the programs. Yeah, taken yes to taking the ownership of their own. Well, yeah.

Jacob Morgan 42:49

And a well being culture is exactly that. It's like, you know, fitness challenges, it's having conversations, it's being able to talk about stuff, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to you know, talk to a therapist, a counselor tomorrow, here's this, here's that, here's that it's just a culture where we want to be healthy. Yeah, healthy snacks. Healthy, right? It's a different approach.

Chris Rainey 43:10

Yeah, I was gonna ask you, I want to before I let you go, I want to at least leave some practical ways that our audience can apply some of this. So what advice would you give to the audience have some ways that they can apply this and get the reps in as it were? Making it part of their daily habit? Sure.

Jacob Morgan 43:28

So specifically, when it comes to sleeping with vulnerability, I mean, the cover of the book is, is a mountain. So it's,

Chris Rainey 43:34

yeah, there it is. You can

Jacob Morgan 43:36

see, so people who are watching, so it's basically somebody getting ready to climb this mountain. And the reason why we pick the mountain because my wife came up with that idea, by the way, all good ideas come from her. And the reason why we picked a mountain is because climbing a mountain is hard. And as anybody who's ever done any kind of hiking or walking or whatever, you notice that the base camp of the mountain is pretty easy. And then the higher up you go, the harder it becomes. But at the same time, the more people you meet on the journey, the farther out you can see the more beautiful the VISTAs become, the more clarity you get. So as you go up that mountain, even though it becomes harder and harder to go, you see a lot of tremendous benefits and impact from doing so. So the best piece of advice I always give people is create your own vulnerability mountain. And what that means is pick something that's pretty easy for you to do. That's your base camp, and pick something that's really hard for you to do. That's your peak. And once you have your base camp and your peak, you take steps slowly each day to get there. So I'll give you an example. Penny Pennington is the CEO of Edward Jones. And she told me that early on this kind of vulnerability and connection was really really hard for her. And oftentimes she would get into elevators with her employees. And she would freeze. She didn't know what to say. And her employees you know, it would be weird, right? You get into that Elevator when you're CEO of a 5000 person company, and your CEO is just standing there and everyone's like, what the hell's going on? Yeah, so she, so it was very uncomfortable for her. So one of the things that she started to do is she started to almost have a little bit of a rehearsed icebreaker. Yeah, rehearse icebreaker we should talk about, like what she did over the weekend, what she learnt Yeah, she read a cool book, and this and that. And so she would rehearse it and practice it each time before she would come into the office. And she did this for a while until it just became second nature for her. And she was able to just connect with her employees and say, Hey, how's it gone? Like, here's what I'm working on. Here's my challenge, what I'm learning this and that. So that was her base camp, something that she was able to do and start. And so something at the peak of that mountain could be anything. I mean, it could be talking about a mental health challenge, and what you're trying to do to overcome it, it can be everyone has different peaks, and everyone has different base camps. But I think once you start to create this vulnerability, this leading with vulnerability mountain for you, it'll really help you. Because it gives you kind of a path that you need to take, and you will make mistakes, I can promise you, that vulnerability will get used against you, at some point in your career, as to be expected, but it's not going to happen nearly as often as you think. Yeah, it's sort of like I was on

Chris Rainey 46:15

my how many times that was one of my concerns. It's happened once or twice, maybe. But nowhere near like, like, way more pros than Yeah,

Jacob Morgan 46:24

it's not like every time you do it 50% of the time, it might happen, you know, 10% of the time. Yeah. But you know, that's life, like how many times do you ask for a promotion? And you get turned know how many times you get asked to for a client and you get turned? No. Or when you ask somebody on a date and you get turned? No, we this happens all the time. You don't just stop, right? If somebody says, Hey, can I have a promotion? I'm doing really good work. And you say, No, now's not a good time. Are you never gonna ask again? No, yeah. And so you will get beat up, you'll make the wrong path, you'll have to go back down to go back up. It's going to be messy and confusing, and this and that. But you'll see tremendous impact and tremendous benefits. Yeah, so create your own vulnerability mountain, I think that's the best thing. And the second piece of advice is just remember that leading with vulnerability, the vulnerable leader equation, leadership, plus vulnerability equals leading with vulnerability, don't just do one or the other.

Chris Rainey 47:13

Yeah, save some for the book. All right. So wait. So on that point, where can people grab a copy? And also, where can they reach out to you personally, if they want to work with you? As you know, our show is predominantly theater as you work with many incredible theaters. So where can they reach you directly and grab a copy of the book?

Jacob Morgan 47:30

Sure. So the book, we made a special URL for that, which is lead with vulnerability.com. My website is the future organization.com. And so my email is Jacob at the future organization.com. And then I have a substack. So email where I share a lot of these insights. And that's great. leadership.substack.com. And then through one of those places, you know, there's social and LinkedIn and the podcast.

Chris Rainey 47:57

Last year, Sir, give it a shout out. Yeah,

Jacob Morgan 48:01

the podcast is called great leadership available wherever you can find a podcast. So I interview a lot of CEOs on there. My grilling them on the show on leadership. Yeah, it's fun.

Chris Rainey 48:11

Love it. And for everyone, listen, as always, all of those links are below. Wherever you're watching listening right now, they're already there. So no excuse make sure you go grab a copy of the book. Also, definitely suggest following take him on LinkedIn, you post some great content. Now you've got the LinkedIn newsletter on there, as well with great content. So make sure you go and subscribe to that. I think what's the newsletter called is like just called Leadership something right?

Jacob Morgan 48:32

What's also great leadership.

Chris Rainey 48:34

Yeah, it's it's great. I love how simple you get that when I first saw that I was like, great title of a newsletter. What is it really a great leadership? Great. Smart Choice. Listen, honestly, it's always a pleasure chatting with you. I'm excited to get this book into the hands of all of our all of the members of our audience and our listeners. And we'll definitely you gave us a sneak shout out for the for the next one around employee experience. So we definitely have to get that one arranged when you're ready.

Jacob Morgan 49:02

Yeah. One more year.

Chris Rainey 49:06

Yeah. What is it until then, but what too hard? I have some breaks. But I look forward to doing that soon. Thanks a lot.

Jacob Morgan 49:12

Thank you

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