Embrace Vulnerability as a Strength, Not a Weakness

Before you begin, here's a quick summary:

• When society values success and achievement, often we're under the pressure to appear perfect.

• But we're human - limited by knowledge and emotions. Trying to appear flawless causes chronic stress, and lead to extreme paranoia and violence, as the notorious dictator - Joseph Stalin showed.

• Instead of clinging onto the armor of perfection, the healthier approach is to embrace vulnerability by admitting limitations and mistakes.

• This may sound scary but counterintuitive, but this approach is more conducive to success.

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In 2021, I was promoted to the role of mobile messaging lead, in charge of anything relevant, including both development and business-as-usual activities. While I was thrilled about the career advancement, I was also extremely nervous about having to lead a roughly 30-person cross-functional team. The change from individual contributor to lead meant I could no longer just look to others for directions, and certainly couldn't just seek sanctuary by escalating to my superior. Instead, I'd have to be the decision-maker and the one who shelters the team.

All these responsibilities felt tremendous, and it certainly didn't help when a close friend told me that the new technical lead was moved to messaging because he publicly accused a division head of lacking vision and told them to just “get out of the way.”

With such a judgmental and fiery character on my team, I was deeply worried about making mistakes, or saying something stupid that would ultimately undermine my credibility and authority. To prevent this, I worked very hard to prepare all the details in advance. At times, I would even script my presentations and mentally prepare some Q&As, so that I could work out a more thoughtful answer that could impress the team. Whenever they escalated issues to me, particularly concerning conflicts with other teams, I'd immediately take their side and fight the outgroup vehemently, asking no questions. All of these efforts were done just so I could be perceived as a strong, reliable visionary.

It was all going well. Within the team, I did manage to gain a reputation as an opinionated, decisive lead who valued and protected the team very well. We were generally quite amicable to one another, until one day he directly dismissed my idea as “unrealistic” at a workgroup meeting.

I was furious. How could he just publicly defy me? However, after the initial wave of anger, something more insidious hit me - shame and fear. I was worried that his snarky comment had undone months of my efforts in trying to be a credible and authoritative leader. Did he, or the team, secretly disagree with me? Could I still run the team effectively?

It might sound ridiculous, but this one snarky comment had tormented me for months. I was trying to hide it, but eventually it just ate me up inside and I had to resolve this with a psychologist (because I didn't really want to share this with any of my coworkers).

Unrealistic Pressure from Society to be Perfect

We live in a society that values success and achievement. At work, we are under so much pressure to be perfect because we are supposed to deliver value to the company. If you are a leader, not only are you expected to make the right decisions, you are supposed to do so decisively, as if you have 100% clarity on what needs to be done. There is simply no room for any expression of doubt or emotional struggle.

And it is not just work that demands infallibility; we are constantly trying to fulfill the expectations of society in general. We carefully control what we say so that we uphold a certain image. We'd suppress our darkest traits to maintain a facade of civility and composure. We studiously curate our social media profiles in order to further reinforce that perfect image that we so desperately want to portray—an image that contains the most prized virtues in contemporary society, i.e. beauty, positivity, resilience, intelligence, composure, success etc.

The Impossible Facade of Perfection

As much as we want to be perfect, we are only human. We are inherently limited by our knowledge, experience, but above all—our emotions and biases. Despite our brain’s effort in trying to make the best decisions and peek into the future, our perception is inevitably limited by the reach of our senses, as well as our prior beliefs and knowledge. We can only make the best decision based on what we know at the time, which is often limited and skewed. 

Logically speaking, there is zero chance for us to be perfect.

For the sake of argument, let’s say it's possible to attain such a level of mastery over your mind that your decision making process is almost flawless. There's still one thing that is, for sure, beyond your control—what others think of you, how they would react, and the circumstances. Not everything will go your way just because you’ve made all the right decisions. Why? Because we are inherently uniquely shaped by our prior experiences. What is important to us could mean nothing to another person. What we define as good may be perceived as detrimental by others. What we thought was unerring truth may be changed one day. 

Fun fact, the Sahara Desert was once a lush green land approximately five thousand to ten thousand years ago. Who would have thought that it had become the largest desert nowadays? 

With time, anything can change.

The Insidious Facade of Perfection

All of this is very discouraging, but we have always known that there are forces beyond our control that would inevitably impact our reputation and quality of life. In fact, we have long accepted our limitations and invented a term to describe everything that's out of our control - luck. We know that despite our best efforts, “luck” always plays a role. But understanding and acceptance are two different concepts. Just because we understand our limits doesn’t mean we would just throw up our hands and give up control. After all, our brain is a prediction machine. It is wired to predict what will happen next and to seek certainty in predictions, so that we can devise the optimal strategy. In the context of curating a perfect and infallible image, even though we cannot dictate how people perceive us, we will still try our very best to influence that so that everything else we've planned can fall into place. Failure is not perceived as an option anyway, because we wouldn't want to risk being judged, ridiculed, or disrespected.

However, while we are busy shielding ourselves from pain, we have somehow neglected the high price associated with the series of curations. I am not talking about the time and effort required on various social media platforms; I am referring to the mental toll we impose on ourselves because we know that we are killing ourselves trying to control the uncontrollable.

You see, our brain isn’t very good at handling conflicting ideas. Whenever there are contradictions or inconsistencies between our thoughts and behaviors, or our beliefs and reality, we would experience cognitive dissonance. It is generally described as a state of discomfort, and depending on the context, the emotion can go from a general sense of unease and anxiety to feeling disturbed and frustrated. In certain situations, some may even escalate to experience chronic negative emotions such as guilt and shame.

Curiously, often our resolution is to double down on this impossible game by trying even harder to cover up our flaws and mistakes, hoping that can overturn the narratives about ourselves.

A Case Study of How the Facade of Perfection Imploded 

Joseph Stalin, the infamous dictator who killed millions just to ease his own paranoia, was a prime example of how his insistence on perfection blew up spectacularly in his face, and killed millions of people with him along the way. He carefully designed school curricula and state media messages to portray himself as a heroic, wise, and benevolent leader of the Soviet Union. The propaganda machine was so effective that many Soviet citizens were oblivious to the full extent of the Famine, which had resulted in a staggering 4 million deaths.

The inconsistency between his epic policy failures and his portrayal as the Father of the Nation had resulted in such a rarefied level of paranoia that it turned the entire Soviet Union into a police state. Millions of people were sent to the Gulag for dubious charges. Many intellectuals and experienced army leaders were labeled as the "enemies of the people" and were executed in the Great Purge or the Show Trials simply because they could potentially threaten Stalin. All of this was done in the name of protecting the dictator's fragile reputation.

Unfortunately, his tight grip on the State was also the reason for his demise. On the night of February 28 to March 1, 1953, Stalin suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed and speechless. When Stalin did not emerge from his room at his usual time, his guards were afraid to check on him without orders, as Stalin had strict rules about his privacy and no one wanted to be sent to the Gulag. It was not until the evening of March 1 that his staff, concerned by his absence, entered the room and found him on the floor.

Stalin was then moved to a couch and remained in a semi-conscious state. He received medical attention, but the doctors were summoned only after a significant delay, partly due to the climate of fear he had engendered; people were terrified of making a decision that could be seen as wrong. The notorious leader finally passed away on March 5, 1953.

Three years later, Khrushchev's successor gave a secret speech titled "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences," which marked the beginning of de-Stalinization. Not only did his legacy not last, he was remembered as one of the worst villains in history. The very thing he had aspired to be—the hero of his homeland—had backfired so spectacularly just because he insisted on being perfect and infallible. He couldn't possibly stomach any perceptions of mistakes or errors.

Letting Go and Embracing Vulnerability 

In our journey through the perilous pursuit of perfection, we've seen the heavy costs of maintaining an image that rejects human fallibility—from being quietly tormented by our own cognitive dissonance, to engineering a nationwide climate of fear just to pacify our own paranoia.

Perhaps it’s time for us to accept our limitations and revisit our strategies. If mistakes and failure are inevitable in life, then a much more sensible approach is to just embrace our vulnerability—to accept our limitations, to admit mistakes, to acknowledge our weaknesses, and above all, to have the courage to open ourselves up even though we may be exposed to ridicule, judgment, or rejection.

This may sound counterintuitive because we are wired to avoid pain at all costs. As we calculate the costs, let us not forget the chronic stress we put ourselves under when we are constantly trying to be who we aren't, or the frustration when we keep trying to control the uncontrollable. Between enduring chronic pain that will inevitably implode and risking possible failures, I think the choice is obvious.

To quote Winston Churchill, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Instead of trying to be flawless, let us all aspire to be resilient and resourceful. Don’t take the uneasiness as a signal to defend your belief, but take it as a sign from your brain telling you your model needs adjustment, and just put in the cognitive work to get closer to the truth. Being able to clearly see and accurately discern situations is the basis of sound judgment, so let us embrace our mistakes and weaknesses and learn from our missteps. Be the kind of leader who is resilient, who stands up stronger and wiser after each time they fail.

The Reward of Accepting My Limits 

In the end, I've decided to just let go of the pursuit of being a perfect leader. To my surprise, it actually brought me closer to the team. When I could share my concerns and admit what I didn't know candidly, instead of judging me like I thought they would, they were eager to help and contribute. The project was no longer just my own thing but a shared goal. Not only was I able to fully leverage their expertise, I also felt more connected to the team and less stressed out about the success of the project because I was not alone.

I know it can be scary, but when you let go of your armor, you will be able to advance much further with much less effort. And even if you don't go as far as you want, the journey is still a much better one because of the companionship.