The Vulnerability Paradox: Why Admitting You Don't Know Makes You a Better Leader

She's in a board meeting. Sharp suit. Composed. The kind of executive who commands a room without saying much at all.

Someone asks a technical question. Specific. Detailed. She doesn't know the answer.

For a split second, you can see her brain working. And then she does what high-performing leaders do: she deflects. She pivots. She says she'll get back to them with the details. She keeps control of the narrative by not admitting she doesn't have all the information right now.

After the meeting, she's frustrated with herself. Not because she doesn't know the answer - that's normal. But because she couldn't just say she doesn't know. She felt like admitting it would signal incompetence. So she performed around it.

What she doesn't see is what her team actually experienced. They didn't respect the deflection. They noticed it. And somewhere in their nervous system, they registered: "It's not safe to admit what you don't know here."

You learned early that your value was tied to what you knew. To being right. To having it together.

Maybe it was your family. Maybe one parent was critical and the other was absent, so you learned to become the competent one - the one who had the answers, who didn't burden anyone with your struggles, who kept it together so nobody had to worry.

Maybe it was school. Maybe you were told that smart people know things. That asking for help is weakness. That the goal is to have all the answers before you raise your hand.

Maybe it was your first job. Maybe you watched people get promoted for knowing everything and criticized for admitting gaps. Maybe vulnerability was read as lack of confidence instead of self - awareness.

Or maybe it was all of it, layered on top of each other over years until the performance became so automatic you don't even notice you're doing it anymore.

You call it "professionalism." You call it "high standards." You call it "being prepared." But what it actually is - if you're honest about it - is fear. Fear that if people see the real you, the uncertain you, the struggling you, they'll lose respect. They'll question your competence. They'll think you don't deserve your position.

So you learned to perform competence instead of lead with authenticity. And because you're smart and capable, you've been remarkably successful at it. You've built a reputation. You've gotten promoted. You've impressed people.

Which means every signal your body sends you - every moment of anxiety when you don't have an answer, every time you override your impulse to be honest and choose the performance instead - gets reinforced as the right call. You have evidence that it works.

But here's what you don't see: it's also costing you everything.

The Neuroscience of Vulnerability as Threat: Why Honesty Feels So Dangerous

Let's talk about what's actually happening in your brain when you're about to admit you don't know something.

Your amygdala - that ancient threat - detection system - registers vulnerability as exposure. Not as strength or courage, but as threat. Because in your nervous system's calculation, exposure equals danger. If you reveal something real about yourself - something uncertain, something that might be judged - you become vulnerable to harm.

Your amygdala's job is to keep you safe. So when it perceives vulnerability as threat, it activates your entire stress response system. Your heart rate increases. Blood flows away from your prefrontal cortex (your wisdom center) and toward your survival systems. Your brain narrows. You go into protection mode.

And in that state, you can't access the clear thinking you need to be an authentic leader. You can't access creativity. You can't access real connection. All you have access to is the performance. The deflection. The careful management of the narrative.

This is why admitting you don't know something can feel literally terrifying. It's not a character flaw. It's not weakness. It's your nervous system doing exactly what it was trained to do - protecting you from what it perceives as danger.

But here's the thing that nobody tells you: your team feels this. Not consciously, but neurologically.

Through what neuroscience calls mirror neurons, your nervous system's state becomes contagious. Your team synchronizes with your vigilance. When you're in protection mode - carefully managing the narrative, performing competence, not allowing yourself to be authentic - your team registers that subtly. They feel the inauthenticity. And their amygdalae activate in response.

They start protecting themselves too. They become careful. They manage their own narratives. They stop taking risks. They stop being real with you.

You think you're protecting yourself and maintaining respect through performance. What you're actually doing is creating an environment where nobody feels safe enough to be authentic. And that environment is the opposite of the high - performing, innovative, engaged team you're trying to build.

What Brené Brown's Research Actually Shows Us

Brené Brown has spent over two decades researching vulnerability, courage, and authentic connection. And here's what she found: vulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability is the most courageous thing a leader can do.

In her research on leadership and trust, Brown discovered something counterintuitive. When leaders admit what they don't know - when they show appropriate vulnerability - their teams trust them more, not less. Not because people lose respect for competence, but because people recognize courage when they see it.

Here's the distinction Brown makes that matters: there's a difference between oversharing and appropriate vulnerability. Appropriate vulnerability is admitting a professional gap, asking for help, sharing a relevant struggle. It's not bringing your entire trauma history to work or burdening your team with problems that are yours to solve.

Appropriate vulnerability says: "I don't know this. I'm going to figure it out. I might need your input."

Oversharing says: "I don't know anything. I'm falling apart. You have to fix this for me."

One builds trust and psychological safety. The other creates chaos and confusion about who's leading.

But here's what's important: most high - performing leaders swing to the extreme of no vulnerability because they're terrified of the oversharing extreme. They think the only options are: perform perfection or fall apart. So they perform.

What Brown's research actually shows is that there's a middle path. A way to be authentically human and genuinely professional at the same time.

This is the same pattern we talk about in accountability work. When you show up differently - more authentic, more real, less defensive - the entire dynamic shifts. Your team mirrors what you model. If you model that it's safe to admit what you don't know, your team learns that it's safe to do the same. If you model that growth means staying open and curious, they become more open and curious.

The way you show up is the culture. And right now, if you're performing, your culture is performing too.

The Performance Paradox: What You Think You're Protecting, But Actually Aren't

You believe that admitting you don't know something signals incompetence.

But competence isn't knowing everything. Real competence is knowing what you don't know and having the wisdom to figure it out or ask for help.

A truly competent leader can say: "I don't have expertise in this area. Here's who does, and here's how we'll move forward." That's not incompetence. That's strategic thinking. That's delegation. That's good leadership.

An incompetent leader pretends to know, makes poor decisions from insufficient information, and then blames others when it goes wrong.

But your nervous system doesn't experience it that way. Your nervous system experiences "admitting I don't know" as exposure. Danger. Loss of control.

So you keep performing. You keep managing the narrative. You keep pretending you have all the answers. And what happens?

Your team stops bringing you real problems because they know you'll either criticize them for not catching it earlier or take over and solve it yourself. So they start managing problems without you knowing about them. You lose visibility. You become a bottleneck instead of a leader.

Your team stops taking risks because they know there's no room for uncertainty. So they stick to what they know, what's safe, what won't trigger your criticism. Your organization becomes conservative. Risk - averse. Stagnant.

Your team stops being real with you because they sense that realness isn't safe. So they perform too. They show up as the version of themselves they think you want to see, not as their authentic selves. Your relationships become transactional instead of genuine.

And you're left wondering why your team isn't engaged. Why innovation isn't happening. Why you feel so alone at the top despite being surrounded by people.

It's because nobody's actually there. You're all performing.

The Cost of the Mask: What's Actually Being Lost

Here's what I want you to understand: maintaining the performance mask costs you more than vulnerability ever will.

The energy required to constantly monitor yourself, manage the narrative, anticipate questions you might not know the answer to, and maintain the appearance of having it all together is extraordinary. Your brain is burning massive amounts of cognitive resources on performance instead of on actual leadership.

You're not sleeping well because part of your brain is always running through scenarios, preparing answers, scanning for what might go wrong. You're not present with your family because part of your brain is at work, still managing the narrative. You're not relaxed in meetings because you're monitoring yourself constantly.

And underneath it all is a constant low - level anxiety. The fear that someday, someone will ask a question you can't answer. Someone will see through the performance. Someone will realize you don't actually have it all figured out.

But here's the thing: everyone already knows you don't have it all figured out. They're not actually fooled by the performance. What they're registering is that you're not safe to be real with. And that changes everything about how they relate to you.

What Changes When You Get Honest: The Other Side of Vulnerability

Let me tell you what happens on the other side of this.

When you stop performing and start leading authentically, something shifts. Not just in you, but in everyone around you.

Your team starts taking more risks because they see that you admit mistakes and learn from them. If you can be uncertain and still be effective, so can they. Innovation increases not because you're suddenly smarter, but because people feel safe enough to try things that might not work.

Your team starts bringing you real problems because they trust that you'll think through solutions together instead of criticizing them for not catching it earlier. You get real information. You make better decisions. Your organization moves faster.

Your team starts engaging more deeply because they feel seen and trusted. They're not performing for you anymore. They're actually working with you. The relationships become real. The work becomes meaningful.

And you - you get to stop carrying the exhaustion of the performance. You get to be yourself. You get to admit when you're learning something new. You get to ask questions without it feeling like weakness.

Do you lose some people? Sometimes. The people who needed you to perform, who were invested in your struggle, who felt superior to you - yes, some of them might not like the shift. But they get replaced by people who actually want to work with the real you. And that's a net gain.

Your leadership actually becomes more effective. Not despite the vulnerability. Because of it.

Admitting You Don't Know: Where to Start

So how do you actually do this? If you've been performing for decades, how do you shift?

Start small. You don't have to become a different person overnight.

In your next meeting, when someone asks a question and you don't know the answer, try something different. Instead of deflecting, try: "That's a great question. I don't have the expertise on that right now, but here's how I think we should approach it." Notice what happens. The world doesn't end. You don't lose respect. People actually appreciate the honesty.

Try asking for input instead of announcing decisions. Instead of: "Here's what we're going to do," try: "Here's what I'm thinking. What am I missing? What do you see that I'm not seeing?" You might be surprised by the quality of thinking that emerges when people feel actually invited to contribute.

Share one professional struggle. Not your entire breakdown. But maybe: "I've been wrestling with how to approach this differently. I want to get better at delegating and not micromanaging as much. I'd appreciate your honest feedback on where I'm doing that." You just gave permission for realness. And you modeled what it looks like to be self - aware and growth - oriented.

Each of these moments is a small vulnerability experiment. And each one teaches your nervous system something new: "Admitting what I don't know doesn't make me less. It makes me more trustworthy. It makes me more effective. It makes me more human."

The Invitation: Permission to Be Imperfect

Here's what I want you to know: you don't have to have it all figured out to be an exceptional leader.

You have to be willing to keep learning. You have to be curious about what you don't know. You have to stay open to input. You have to be willing to be wrong and adjust.

But you don't have to know everything. You don't have to perform perfection. You don't have to carry the exhaustion of maintaining a mask that everyone can see through anyway.

Real leadership comes from authenticity, not from performance. From self - awareness, not from control. From the willingness to say: "I don't know, and here's how we'll figure it out together."

That's the kind of leader people actually want to follow. That's the kind of culture that actually works. That's the kind of presence that actually changes things.

The vulnerability isn't a liability. It's your superpower. You just have to be brave enough to use it.

Recognizing that the performance mask is exhausting you - and that your leadership would actually be stronger without it - is a crucial first step. But shifting from performance to authenticity isn't just about willpower. It requires examining the beliefs that created the mask in the first place, and building a nervous system that feels safe enough to be real.

The shift doesn't happen by trying harder to perform. It happens by finally choosing to be yourself.

📩 Ready to explore how authenticity could shift your relationships and leadership? Rae offers free consultations for you to learn more about strategic sessions or some of our leadership programs. Schedule your consultation today.

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Rae Francis is an Executive Resilience Coach and therapist, and founder of Rae Francis Consulting. She supports high - performing leaders in building mental fitness, emotional intelligence, and sustainable success through her Strategic Mental Fitness Methodology™. Her executive coaching programs teach stress management, resilience training, and goal alignment strategies so you can lead from wholeness - not perpetual chasing. Learn more about leadership coaching programs built for sustainable growth and inner clarity.