Leadership Vulnerability: What Research Actually Says

If you admit a mistake, will people respect your honesty or question your competence? If you acknowledge uncertainty, will they contribute their knowledge or lose confidence in your judgment?

Those questions help explain why vulnerability can be difficult for leaders. And recent research suggests the answers deserve more thought than “just be authentic.”

Sharing your mistakes can encourage others to speak up

A study published in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2024 examined 353 employees across 95 teams. Researchers Kaili Zhang, Bin Zhao, and Kui Yin found a positive relationship between leaders sharing their own errors and team members sharing errors with their leaders. [1]

The study was observational, so it doesn’t establish that a leader’s disclosure caused employees to follow suit. But it provides evidence that the behavior leaders model matters.

For me, the practical implication is straightforward. Asking people to own their mistakes carries more weight when they’ve seen you own yours. Acknowledging what happened, taking responsibility, and explaining what you’re changing gives people an example they can use.

But uncertainty can carry a cost

A 2025 paper by Shilaan Alzahawi and Francis Flynn, published in The Leadership Quarterly, offers a less comfortable finding.

Across five experiments, leaders who expressed uncertainty were judged less effective, less competent, and less warm. Participants were also less inclined to take their advice, select them as leaders, or allocate rewards to them. [2]

That deserves attention. We shouldn’t tell leaders that showing vulnerability will always make other people respond positively. These experiments examined expressed uncertainty, however, rather than every behavior we might describe as leadership vulnerability.

Admitting an error, asking someone to teach you something, and expressing doubt about a decision are different actions. They shouldn’t be treated as interchangeable.

How you communicate matters

Research by Erik Løhre and Karl Halvor Teigen, published in a 2024 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, adds another layer.

Across experiments, leaders received higher competence ratings when they described uncertainty as arising from the situation’s complexity or unpredictability rather than from their own uncertainty. Yet participants, when asked directly, generally said leaders should be open about uncertainty. [3]

People can want honesty and still find confidence reassuring. Leaders have to navigate both.

My practical interpretation is to make uncertainty useful to the conversation. Explain what remains unknown, what you do know, and how you plan to move forward. That recommendation is an application of the research, rather than a formula these studies tested.

Practice with purpose

My takeaway from this research is that leadership vulnerability requires judgment.

Before sharing, consider what the disclosure will help people understand or do. It might make a mistake easier to discuss, bring someone else’s expertise into a decision, or make asking for help feel more acceptable.

Then pay attention to what happens afterward. Do you listen when someone challenges you? Do you take responsibility without making excuses? Does asking for input lead to serious consideration of the answer?

That’s the kind of practice Big V Energy encourages. Small, specific actions give leaders opportunities to become more open while continuing to take responsibility for how they lead.

Explore the 25 free leadership vulnerability challenges and accompanying V-Casts at getbigvenergy.com.