ONE OF THE MOST COURAGEOUS choices you can make is to be vulnerable. That’s when you let your guard down, exposing and expressing your truest feelings—anger, sadness, fear, shame, all of it—despite the judgment or pushback or hostility you think you might receive as a result. Michael Gervais, Ph.D., a performance psychologist who has worked with NFL teams, CEOs, Olympians, and other high performers, defines vulnerability as “the courage to be authentic, the courage to be true, the courage to say the thing that needs to be said, even though it’s hard to say.”
Here’s how optimal vulnerability might look at work: You stepped into your boss’s role when
