All my life, I have been told that I can never admit when I’m wrong. (Which isn’t true. I’d be happy to admit to any mistake I have ever made. I’ve just never made one.) So, it was a surprising choice that led me into the next session I attended at this year’s coaching conference: “The Power of Vulnerability: Leading Authentically to Empower Teachers.”

Vulnerability is a scary word, and in the spirit of vulnerability, I can admit to you now that I picked this session in part because I only had to be a spectator, not a participant. However, Terri Seay Bryant, a senior program director at the Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement, helped me, along with all of the other attendees, see why being vulnerable matters, not just in instructional coaching but in leadership of all kinds.

 

What Vulnerability Is

Here is another confession in the name of being vulnerable: I was trying to come up with a clever title for this post, and I Googled “vulnerability synonyms.”

Here are some of the words that popped up:

• Exposure
• Susceptibility
• Sensitivity
• Weakness

I don’t know about you, but if someone told me that I was weak and sensitive, I probably wouldn’t like that person! And who wants to be exposed and susceptible?

All of these words have negative connotations, so it’s no wonder that vulnerability can also be seen as something to avoid.

Be vulnerable? No, thank you! How would anyone ever respect me if I let them know I’m not actually perfect?

Then I thought of something from my childhood:

When I was young, my mom was a counselor. One of her big maxims was that parents should argue in front of their kids. She didn’t mean violent, out-of-the-ordinary, abusive fights. She meant normal couple fights.

Why?

Well, parents are the models for their kids, and if a kid grows up seeing her parents’ relationship as “perfect,” when they form their own relationship and start fighting in a normal manner, it feels abnormal. It feels like something is wrong.

Seeing a healthy relationship with healthy problems helps the child develop normal views of what it means to be in a marriage and teaches them how to cope and deal with those issues when they come up.

In essence, when parents show their children their vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms, it teaches the kids to be better partners when they get older.

Vulnerability is not about being weak or exposing yourself to ridicule…It’s about being human and establishing trust.

Parents being vulnerable in front of their kids to model healthy relationships is to school leaders and instructional coaches (or leaders of any sort really) being vulnerable in front of their teachers to model healthy practices in the classroom.

Vulnerability is not about being weak or exposing yourself to ridicule or whatever else those synonyms listed above imply.

It’s about being human and establishing trust. It’s about showing the people who are looking to us for help and guidance that they aren’t alone in their imperfection and helping them see how they can use their imperfections or overcome them.

In her session, Bryant drew from her deep experience in education leadership and coaching to challenge attendees to reflect not just on how they work with their teachers—but on how they allow themselves to use vulnerability to connect with and better support their teachers.

The session wasn’t about theory. It was about real talk:

• What do we keep hidden as leaders?
• What stories do we tell ourselves to avoid risk?
• How often do we model the very growth mindset we expect from others?

 

5 Reasons to Bring Vulnerability to Your Instructional Coaching

Reason 1: Embracing Vulnerability Empowers Growth and Learning

Bryant reminded attendees that, like the kids they teach, adults bring their past experiences, traumas and assumptions into every conversation.

Showing your team that it is okay to make mistakes and that it is a normal part of the growth and learning process (as well as the human process) allows them to take more risks and try more things in their classrooms.

In order to be able to help them, coaches and leaders have to see the whole person in front of them—and start from a place of empathy.

Empathy is not a one-way street. To really recognize that each teacher you support is an individual with a life outside of their job, you need to be an individual with a life outside of your job.

Bryant pointed out one of the hardest parts about being a teacher: “Teachers aren’t vulnerable by nature” of the job. They are taught that they are “supposed to know everything” and so they end up feeling that they cannot show any weakness.

Showing your team that it is okay to make mistakes and that it is a normal part of the growth and learning process (as well as the human process) allows them to take more risks and try more things in their classrooms. It opens them up to the growth you want to see in them.

You have to live the culture you want reflected in your school. If you want to better support your teachers in their growth process, show them that when you make a mistake, you don’t hide from it. You learn from it.

 

Reason 2: Safe Spaces Don’t Just Form—They’re Built

Think about the people in your life you listen to the most. The ones whose advice you seek out and you trust more than anyone?

Now think about how you built that trust with them. I don’t know about you, but all the people I trust the most built that trust with me over time, and it was never a one-way street. They created trust by being honest and open with me instead of just expecting me to be honest and open with them.

“You don’t solve complex problems with people you don’t have relationships with,” Bryant pointed out. To build the relationships you need to solve those problems, allow yourself to open up a little to your teachers, just like you want them to do to you.

Reason 3: Modeling Vulnerability Opens Doors for Teacher Reflection

In the musical comedy TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, two of the main characters get into a fight where both of them are a little wrong. However, neither wants to admit their part in the disagreement, so they just continue not speaking to each other.

As soon as one person modeled vulnerability, others followed

In the song “You Go First,” you hear the following lyrics:

“Go ahead and say you’re kind of sorry!
So I can say, ‘Oh, no, no, no, please!’
Just like I rehearsed!
If you open up the door
I’ll apologize so much more
Yes I will!
But you go first.”

What they learned in this episode was that it is easier to open yourself up and admit mistakes when someone else goes first. And just like parents should fight in front of their kids, teachers need you to demonstrate the vulnerability you want them to show.

Why? Well, just like yawning is contagious, so is vulnerability.

Bryant had coaching attendees group themselves based on common characteristics such as birth order and then talk about what they thought about being in that group. The talks started out a little basic, but inevitably, one person in each group would share something deeper, and then the whole group would start sharing.

“You saw it in the room—at first people were just listing facts. But as soon as one person modeled vulnerability, others followed,” Bryant said,

It is easier to share your own vulnerabilities when someone else goes first. As the leader, you can help support your teachers by creating that safe space they need to open up and allow themselves to be vulnerable in order to improve and grow.

“Teachers are comfortable being vulnerable in front of students,” she said. “But not in front of adults.”

Her challenge to leaders: You go first.

 

Reason 4: Misalignment Creates Mistrust

“If we say we’re about growth, about learning—but we never admit our own mistakes—what message does that send?” Bryant asked.

In our group discussion, an attendee talked about a school leader who made an effort to appear above all error. They were always polished and never wrong about anything. However, instead of leading their school to perfection, they created a building that felt unstable.

Another participant echoed that sentiment, adding that her school had a school leader who would never “reflect or admit when she drops the ball—and that’s shaped the whole culture of the building.”

Coaches must walk the talk.

“We’ve got leaders who are espousing values that are not in alignment with how people are receiving or experiencing” the values those same leaders demonstrate, Bryant said. And the truth is that if what teachers see you doing doesn’t match your leadership message, people stop believing both.

If leaders say they value growth, openness or feedback—but never model those things—it erodes trust. Coaches must walk the talk.

 

Reason 5: Feedback Expands Growth—So Ask for It

You want your teachers coming to you and asking you for help and advice. However, you need to show them that it is okay to do so.

One powerful suggestion: actively seek feedback to shrink your blind spots. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about showing that you’re still growing, too.

 

What Vulnerability Is Not

At one point, Bryant put up a chart of different leader types and asked the group which they should be.

• One always admitted mistakes and told stories from their own experiences.
• Another acknowledged when they didn’t have answers, shared their own experiences when necessary, and empathized with their teachers.
• The third was perfect at all times.

Everyone pretty quickly agreed that nobody wanted to be the “perfect” leader, but many people equally didn’t want to be the leader who shared everything.

Being vulnerable is about being thoughtful and intentional with what you share.

Just as parents should only model healthy arguing to their kids, a school leader or instructional coach should only share a healthy amount with their teachers. There is such a thing as TMI.

Being vulnerable doesn’t mean you constantly have to portray that you do not know what you are doing. Your teachers want to be able to come to you for answers, and if you never have any for them, why would they keep coming?

Being vulnerable is about being thoughtful and intentional with what you share.

Bryant shared a Johari Window – a four-quadrant model that helps us explore how we see ourselves and how others see us.

1. The things we are open to sharing – such as being a parent or liking to read.
2. Things that we know about ourselves that we don’t share with others – fears, doubts, etc.
3. Things others know about us that we don’t see in ourselves – our blind spots.
4. Things that others don’t know about us that we also don’t know yet – this is left blank and is reserved for future discoveries.

She encouraged the attendees to think about each of these categories and reflect on what they are willing to share with their teachers in the first two boxes – and what they are willing to listen to and accept in the third box.

This method can help you find the right balance between modeling strong vulnerability and being an oversharer whose leadership skills are always being questioned.

For more tips and ideas like these, make sure you sign up for our Promising Practices Newsletter and subscribe to our Class-Act Coaching podcast, available wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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