Its very rare I say I was blessed/honoured/fortunate to attend an event, but last week's LinkedIn event in London was quite simply transformative. Featuring guest speaker journalist/author/podcaster Elizabeth Day (big fan!), "Chatham House" rules prevent me from sharing too much detail.

Elizabeth's podcast "How To Fail with Elizabeth Day" celebrates the things that haven't gone right. Interviewees explore what their failures taught them about how to succeed better. And often those failures are being shared in public for the first time, with many being highly personal.

This neatly dovetailed into how as leaders we need to be authentic through sharing failures or vulnerabilities and indeed being more open. Some thoughts :

✨ sharing personal experiences (very hard for us Brits!) only strengthens your professional relationships and makes you a better leader

✨ embrace failure & celebrate how its made you better (which 99% of the time it does)

✨ failure will happen and its fine. (Reminds me of telling my son, new to cycling, that you WILL fall off some time and you WILL get a mech failure or puncture. Its all good, embrace it!)

✨ at work, don't be afraid to say "I don't know" or "I don't have the answer". Infallibility is ok!

Finally thank you to Fredrik Borestrom Luke Phebey for the invite and to Josh Graff for hosting. The organisation, venue, food and company were outstanding. Josh - you have a second career as an interviewer!

And if you haven't already, check out Elizabeth's podcast. Great guests, often deeply moving stories but with moments of great humour!

#leadershipdevelopment #authenticleadership #vulnerability

John Watton

B2B Marketing. Digital. Social.