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Abstract

Weakness is the new strength: How vulnerability makes leaders stronger is the result from the meta-analysis of five phenomenological studies designed to generate a theory that explains how exemplar leaders from five different fields used “soft-skills” and four domains of behavior to create mutual shared knowledge, resolve conflict and transform relationships to produce breakthrough results. The four domains of behavior are communication, collaboration, ethics, and emotional intelligence. The sample was composed of 75 exemplar leaders from five different professional fields and included an analysis of over 1,300 pages of interview transcripts as the main data source for the study. The results found that exemplar leaders establish, build, or repair relationships with traditional oppositional stakeholders as a method of inoculating against, mitigating, or resolving conflict. Communication was also identified as the primary domain for engaging stakeholders in all aspects including remaining vulnerable, accepting feedback of all types while using emotional intelligence to mitigate unwanted behaviors from both the leader and stakeholders. Vulnerable leaders’ communication efforts were influenced by their emotional intelligence skill set, ethical behavior, likability, predictability and temperate behavior. The greater the number of activities combined and the higher the quality interactions between the activities from the four domains of behavior created the conditions such that a leader had a greater opportunity for successfully transforming conflict, achieving common ground, and producing breakthrough results through all types of non-violent conflict found in both personal and organizational situations.

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