Available November 20, 2025

Episode 007: The Vulnerability Advantage: Why Admitting Weakness Makes Organizations Stronger

DURATION: 28 minutes
HOST: Kevin Novak and Elizabeth Stewart
SHOW: The Human Factor Podcast

Picture this scene. Fortune 500 boardroom. The CEO has just been asked about a failed digital transformation initiative that cost $12 million. Everyone in the room knows it failed. The press knows it failed. The employees definitely know it failed. And customers have surely felt the pain.

The CEO leans forward and says, we’re seeing tremendous learning from our strategic pivot, and we’re excited about the optimization opportunities and the translation, it failed, but I can’t admit it.

And in that moment, the CEO just made failure inevitable again. Because when leaders can’t admit what everyone already knows, they guarantee they’ll never learn what they need to know.

Today, we’re exploring one of the most counterintuitive principles in transformation psychology. Vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s a superpower but only if you know how to use it. I’m Kevin Novak, CEO of 2040 Digital, professor at the University of Maryland and author of the book, The Truth About Transformation and the Ideas and Innovations Weekly Newsletter.

And I’m Elizabeth Stewart, Kevin’s consulting partner at 2040 Digital. I spent the last 15 years helping organizations transform their operations and resources, both human and financial, and to manage change and address innovation.

Welcome to the Human Factor Podcast, the show that explores the intersection of humanity, technology and transformation, along with the psychology behind transformation success.

You know, Kevin, this topic always generates the most resistance when we bring it up with leadership teams. Why is that?

It’s true. The idea that admitting weakness could be a strength goes against everything most executives have been taught about leadership.

So, Elizabeth, before we dive in, I want to acknowledge something. This episode idea came from you, from your patterns that you’ve been seeing in our client work. Can you share what sparked this?

Of course. You know, over the past year, I’ve noticed something fascinating. The organizations that transform successfully aren’t the ones that project the most confidence. They’re the ones comfortable enough to say, we don’t know. Sometimes even admitting, we don’t know what we don’t know, but we’re going to figure it out and conversely the ones that fail are often the ones that pretend, sometimes assume to have all the answers.

Exactly. There’s this pattern I keep seeing. Leadership analysis of transformation with absolute certainty. We know exactly where we’re going and how to get there. Six months later, when reality doesn’t match the plan, they can’t adjust because they box themselves into false certainty.

It’s what I call the confidence trap. The more confidently you present your strategy, the harder it becomes to adapt when you learn new information. Since you are practically admitting, your strategy may have been incomplete or flawed from the start.

And transformation is all about learning new information. By definition, you’re doing something you haven’t done before. So how could you possibly have all the answers?

Today, we’re going to explore why vulnerability accelerates transformation, how pretending to have answers prevents finding real solutions, and what happens when organizations create what we call psychological safety through strategic vulnerability.

We’ll also share some surprising examples of how admitting weakness has become a competitive advantage for some of the world’s most successful organizations.

Kevin, let’s start with what we call the hiding cascade. Can you explain what this is?

It’s a phenomenon where everyone in an organization is hiding the same problems, believing they’re the only ones struggling. It starts at the top and cascades down through every level.

You know, I saw this recently with a technology company implementing a new CRM system. Can I share that story?

Please do. It’s a perfect example.

Well, the CEO announced a CRM transformation with great fanfare. This will revolutionize how we serve customers. The executive team nodded enthusiastically. Privately, the CFO was terrified about the cause, as he should be. The CTO was worried about integration, as he should be. The head of sales knew her team would revolt, but in the meeting, everyone smiled and agreed.

Because admitting concern would be seen as a weakness or disloyalty.

Exactly. So each executive went to their teams and presented the same false confidence. Leadership is fully aligned. This is going to be amazing. Their direct reports had the same concerns but stayed quiet for the same reasons.

And this cascade continues all the way down to the front lines.

But the people who actually use the system every day are thinking, my goodness, this is never going to work. But I guess I’m the only one who sees it.

And six months later, the implementation is failing. But here’s the tragic part. Everyone knew it would fail. The collective intelligence of the organization had identified every problem. But that intelligence was trapped behind a wall of false confidence.

And the research on this is fascinating. Amy Edmondson from Harvard has spent decades studying psychological safety. Her data shows that teams where people admit mistakes and ask questions outperform confident teams, I say confident teams, by 40 % on average.

But here’s what’s counterintuitive. It’s not the junior people who need to be vulnerable first. It’s the leaders.

That’s right. Google’s project Aristotle found that psychological safety was the number one factor in team performance. But safety doesn’t mean comfort, okay? It means people feel safe being uncomfortable.

Safe to say, I don’t know.

Safe to say, I was wrong.

Safe to say, I need help.

And that safety, it only exists when leaders model it first. When a CEO says, I don’t have all the answers. It doesn’t make people lose confidence in him or her. It gives them permission to be open and honest.

Yeah, let me share an example from my own experience. I was teaching a class at the University of Maryland. A student asked me about a specific technology and its influence on changing society. It was servicing a new social network that was using AI that I wasn’t aware of. I could have given a generic answer that sounded authoritative to be the professor. Instead, I said, you know what? I don’t know. But that’s a great question. Let’s all talk through it.

So what happened next?

The entire dynamic of the class changed that evening. Students that had been silent started sharing their own thoughts and uncertainties. It turned from a lecture into a collaborative discussion and an exploratory session, which is the most great way to get kids engaged. And we actually came up with rational and informed answers to the initial question. And it was so much better than I could have provided alone.

That’s the vulnerability advantage in action. By admitting what you don’t know, you unlock the collective intelligence of the group or the team.

But most organizations do the opposite. They create what you call competence theater.

And competence theater is when everyone performs confident as they don’t feel. Meetings become performances when people recite their lines like, everything’s on drag, no major issues, full steam ahead.

Meanwhile, the real conversations happen in the hallways, private messages, and after work drinks.

So people say, can you believe this disaster?

War, this is never going to work.

But what can we do?

The organization has two realities, the official one where everything is fine and the shadow one where everyone knows that it’s simply not.

Elizabeth, there’s a paradox here that we need to address. How do you maintain credibility while admitting uncertainty? Won’t people lose faith in leadership that doesn’t have all the answers?

This is the vulnerability competence paradox. It’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what competence actually means in complex environments.

Of course, traditional thinking says competence equals having the answers.

But in transformation, competence equals finding answers. Those are very different things.

Can you elaborate on that distinction a little more?

Sure. So in a stable environment with known problems, competence means expertise, right? You’ve seen this before, you know the solution. But transformation by definition means doing something new. The problem is novel, the context is unique. Previous solutions may not apply.

So, competence becomes about process, not answers.

Right. It’s about knowing how to navigate uncertainty, not pretending uncertainty doesn’t exist.

I love the framework you developed for this, confident uncertainty model.

Thank you, Kevin. It came from observing leaders who successfully balance vulnerability with credibility. They’re confident in their ability to figure things out while being uncertain about exactly what they’ll figure out.

Yeah, they say things like, don’t know the answer, but I know how we’ll find it.

Or they might say, this may not work, but here’s how we’ll know quickly and how we can adjust.

And of course that’s very different from false certainty. This will definitely work because I said so.

There’s actually neuroscience behind why vulnerable leaders inspire more confidence. When someone admits uncertainty, our brains recognize authenticity. Mirror neurons fire differently when we observe genuine emotion versus perform emotion or fake emotion.

People have excellent BS detectors.

That is very, very true. We evolved to detect deception because it was a survival, it was survival critical in the small tribes. When a leader projects false confidence, people sense it, even if they can’t articulate why.

Yeah, this creates what I call the trust deficit, the gap between what leaders say and what people sense creates organizational anxiety and anxiety destroys performance. Studies show that teams operating under false certainty make 34 % more errors than teams that acknowledge uncertainty.

And that’s because they’re spending cognitive energy maintaining the facade instead of solving problems. So let me share a story that illustrates this perfectly, A healthcare system was implementing a new patient management system. The CIO stood up and said, I’ll be honest, this is the most complex integration I’ve ever attempted. I don’t know if our approach will work, but here’s how we’ll find out fast. And here’s how we’ll adjust if it doesn’t.

That’s vulnerability, but confident.

And the response was fascinating. Instead of panic, there was relief. One department had actually said, thank God someone finally admitted this is hard.

Because everyone already knew it was hard.

But they were all pretending it wasn’t. Once the CIO broke the spell, real problem solving could begin. Teams started sharing concerns early instead of hiding them. They created rapid feedback loops instead of long review cycles. And then they celebrated learning from failures instead of hiding them.

So what were the results?

Well, the implementation still had challenges, but they solved them 60 % faster than previous system rollouts. Not because they had better technology or even more resources, but because they had the psychological permission to be honest about the problems. And this connects to something called the competence curse. The more expert someone is, the harder it is for them to admit ignorance.

Which is particularly problematic in transformation because expertise in the old way can actually be a liability for the new way.

I see this with digital transformation constantly. The executives who built their careers in pre-digital feel they need to be experts in digital to maintain credibility. So they pretend to understand technologies they actually don’t. They make decisions based on limited knowledge and they create strategies that simply don’t make any sense.

When what they should be saying is, built this company without digital, now I need to learn digital, and I need your help. And that statement alone could inspire more confidence in any amount of false expertise.

So how do organizations create what you call strategic vulnerability? How do you build a culture where admitting weakness is seen as a strength?

It starts with understanding the difference between productive and unproductive vulnerability. Not all vulnerability is helpful, you know.

Can you give an example of each?

So unproductive vulnerability is emotional dumping without a purpose. A leader saying, I’m overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do and there’s no follow-up. That creates anxiety without direction. Is vulnerability is abdication.

Exactly. Productive vulnerability acknowledges limitation while maintaining agency. This is challenging me in new ways. Here’s what I’m learning and here’s what I need from you.

It’s really vulnerability as invitation. It becomes inclusive and welcoming.

Yes, it invites others into problem solving rather than dumping problems on them.

So you’ve developed a framework for this, the Admit Protocol.

The ADMIT stands for this, okay? A, acknowledge what you don’t know. D, define what you need to learn. mobilize resources to learn it. I, iterate based on feedback. And T, transparency about the process.

So let’s walk through each item.

Acknowledge is simply stating the uncertainty clearly. No hedging, no minimizing. You just say, don’t know if this approach will work.

Which of course is different from we’re fairly confident this might work.

That hedging language actually creates more anxiety because people sense the hidden uncertainty. Define means being specific about knowledge gaps. Not we need to learn about AI, but we need to understand how AI will impact a specific workflow.

Mobilizes where vulnerability becomes productive.

That’s right. You’re not just admitting ignorance. You’re actively addressing it. Here’s who we’re bringing in. Here’s what we’re studying. And here’s how we’ll experiment.

Iterate acknowledges that learning isn’t linear.

No it isn’t. You say we’ll try this, we’ll learn and we adjust. Our first attempt probably won’t be perfect or even right.

And transparency means sharing the learning process, not just the outcomes.

Here’s what we tried, here’s what failed, here’s what we learned, and here’s what we’re trying next.

I want to share how we’ve used this at 2040 Digital. When we started developing the human factor method, I could have presented it as a finished framework. Instead, we were transparent about its evolution.

How do the clients respond?

They became co-creators. They shared what worked, what didn’t, and what was missing. The framework became stronger because we admitted it wasn’t perfect. It also became adaptable to each client’s situation which was always first and foremost the goal.

And that’s the paradox. Admitting imperfection leads to better outcomes than claiming perfection.

There’s another element here what you call vulnerability boundaries

Yes, that is crucial. Strategic vulnerability doesn’t mean sharing everything with everyone. There are boundaries, you know.

What kind of boundaries?

So, temporal boundaries, which is some uncertain needs to be resolved before sharing broadly. If you’re considering layoffs for example for example, you work through the decision before creating organizational anxiety.

Hierarchical boundaries?

Sometimes senior leadership needs to process uncertainty before cascading it down, not to hide it but to frame it productively.

Personal versus professional boundaries?

Critical distinction, Sharing that you don’t understand a technology is professional vulnerability. Sharing your marriage problems? No, that is not strategic vulnerability in a work environment.

Unless it’s affecting your performance in a way the team needs to understand.

Well, even then, it’s about professional impact, not personal details. You could say, I’m dealing with some personal challenges that might affect my availability versus detailed personal information about your marital woes.

Let’s look at some examples of organizations that have used strategic vulnerability as a competitive advantage.

Microsoft, for instance under Satya Nadella is a perfect example.

It’s a complete transformation from the Balmer era.

When Nadella became CEO Kevin, Microsoft was seen as arrogant, insular and declining. His first major speech included the line, we need to rediscover our soul.

And he admitted the company had completely lost its soul along the way.

He talked about moving from know-it-alls to learn-it-alls. That’s vulnerability as an organizational strategy.

And it worked. Microsoft’s market cap has increased significantly under his leadership. And they are now seen as a critical linchpin in AI development and hosting.

And not despite the vulnerability, but because of it. By admitting they didn’t have all the answers, Microsoft became open to partnerships, to new technologies, and customer feedback they’d previously ignored.

Another example is Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates.

Where radical transparency is a core principle.

They record every meeting. Anyone can challenge anyone regardless of the hierarchy. Mistakes are dissected publicly.

That may sound brutal, but it’s actually psychological safety through radical vulnerability. Everyone’s imperfections are visible, so no one needs to hide them.

Let’s bring this to practical application. A leader listening to this is probably thinking, okay, I get it, but how do I start?

Start small not your deepest strategic uncertainty, but something that’s truly manageable.

In your next team meeting, for example, say something like, I want to be transparent about something. I don’t fully understand how our customers use our new feature. I’ve been assuming X, but I realize I might be wrong. So what are you all seeing?

And then this is really crucial. Actually listen to the responses that you get. And without defending your own assumptions, without explaining why you thought what you thought but just listen and learn.

So what usually happens?

Well, three things, right? First, relief. People physically relax when leaders admit uncertainty. Second, engagement. People who normally stay quiet, they start contributing. Third, information. You learn things that have been hidden by the confidence cascade.

But here’s what leaders fear. Loss of respect.

But Kevin, in your experience, have you ever lost respect for a leader who genuinely admitted they didn’t know something?

Never. I’ve lost respect for leaders who pretended to know things that they didn’t, but admitting ignorance with commitment to learning. That builds respect.

This research on this Stanford’s Carol Dweck studied how children respond to adults who admit mistakes. Children actually trust adults more when they acknowledge errors than when they claim perfection. And you will not have been through this with our own kids.

All the time. And we really don’t change that much as adults.

We don’t. We still trust authenticity over authority.

So let me share a failure of mine. Early in developing our assessment tool at transformationassessment.com, I was convinced we needed to measure 50 different variables. I presented this to our team with great confidence.

And what happened?

The data and team insight was overwhelming. What I planned to include was a lot. The team shared users would be overwhelmed as they tried to complete the assessment. It was just so stressful. The results were going to be too complex, they said, to be even actionable, or even for us to interpret. But I’ve been so confident that I initially defended it rather than admitting that there was a

So how did you shift, Kevin?

So Elizabeth, you actually called me out. You said, Kevin, this isn’t working and everyone knows it is. And for anyone who knows Elizabeth, she’s very direct and I respect that greatly.

And I’m glad you admitted that because I do remember that conversation.

And it stung, but you were right. I brought the team together and said, okay, I was wrong. This is too complex. Help me fix it. We simplified it to the core factors that actually predict transformation success. The assessment became more powerful by becoming more simple, but it only happened because I admitted the original approach failed.

And…

So what can leaders do tomorrow to start building strategic vulnerability?

First, audit your confidence performances. Where are you pretending to have answers that you don’t have?

Make lists. Be honest with yourself before being honest with others.

Second, practice Elizabeth’s Admit Protocol with something small. Pick a low stakes uncertainty and walk through those five steps.

Third, create vulnerability permissions. In your next meeting, explicitly invite uncertainty. What are we pretending to know that we actually don’t?

Reward, vulnerable truth-telling. When someone admits a mistake or uncertainty, thank them publicly.

Yeah, you can say thank you for flagging that. That took courage and it helps us all.

Fifth, distinguish between confidence in your values and certainty about your methods.

You can be absolutely confident in where you’re trying to go while being uncertain about exactly how to get there.

And that’s really the sweet spot. Confident uncertainty. Elizabeth, this has been one of my favorite conversations that we’ve had. Any final thoughts?

Just said vulnerability isn’t the opposite of strength. It’s the foundation of strength. When organizations stop wasting energy maintaining facades, they can use that energy to actually transform. And you become more successful as a leader when they see you as authentic.

The organizations that will thrive aren’t the ones with all the answers. They’re the ones brave enough to admit they don’t have all of the answers.

And smart enough to find them together.

In our next episode, we’re diving into something that connects directly to what Elizabeth and I discussed today about vulnerability and psychological safety. We’re exploring the resistance that hides behind apparent support. Episode eight is called the 12 types of resistance when support isn’t really support. Here’s why this matters. After we talked about how communication fails, even when you’re saying the right things in episode six, and how vulnerability creates the foundation for authentic change today in episode seven. You need to understand what’s actually happening beneath the surface when people say they support your transformation, but their behavior tells you a different story. I’m going to show you the 12 distinct psychological patterns that appear helpful, professional, and supportive while systematically preventing transformation from succeeding. Innovation resistance that appears as quality control.

Knowledge transfer resistance that shows up as documentation requirements. Authority distribution resistance that manifests as governance proposals. Each pattern sounds rational in isolation, but together they create the invisible drag that explains why transformations with full support still fail at predictable rates. The supporters aren’t lying about their commitment. They’re operating with multiple simultaneous truths.

That they can’t consciously reconcile. And once you can see these patterns as patterns rather than individual concerns, once you can address the underlying psychology rather than just a surface request, transformation becomes possible in ways it never was when you were fighting resistance directly. That’s episode eight, and it builds directly on everything we’ve discussed about communication, vulnerability, and psychological safety across these last three episodes.

If you found value in today’s episode, subscribe to the podcast, share it with your team, and please leave a rating. And if you’re wondering how psychologically safe your organization really is, take our free assessment at transformationassessment.com. Again, transformationassessment.com. And subscribe to our Ideas and Innovation newsletter on Substack

Until next time, remember, transformation isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about being brave enough to admit that you don’t.

And smart enough to find them.

I’m Kevin Novak.

And I’m Elizabeth Stewart.

This has been the Human Factor Podcast. Thank you for watching or listening.

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Upcoming: Available November 26, 2025

EPISODE 008: The 12 Types Of Resistance When Support Isn’t Really Support

You can’t address resistance you can’t see.

Most transformation leaders are fighting the wrong battles because they’re focused on overt resistance while unconscious resistance patterns systematically undermine their initiatives.

More Episodes Coming Soon

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