This content was created by GHION.AI . This content was uploaded by GHION.AI . This is a YouTube video titled "Ori Brafman: Vulnerability as a Leadership Skill" created on May 10, 2011. It discusses the concept of vulnerability in leadership, using a story about a hostage negotiator to illustrate how vulnerability can build trust and connection, even in high-stakes situations.
Chapters
When you think about vulnerability, you oftentimes.
Think about it as a weakness, as being too soft, especially in business.
And the data suggests that leaders who are vulnerable are far more trusted by their employees. People who are vulnerable tend to start more intimate relationships.
We talked to a police officer from San Jose down the street who is a hostage negotiator. And when you think of hostage negotiators, you oftentimes think of guys who are very gruff. You think of Bruce Willis types, right? And this guy's job is, imagine this, right? Someone took a hostage and you have to basically talk them down. And you can't shoot them or anything like that because the hostages will obviously be killed.
So this guy takes the hostages and.
He'S a two time offender already, which means that by getting caught now with the hostages, he's going to automatically go to prison for the rest of his life, under three strikes. And the cops have a name for this type of scenario, and it's called suicide by cop. The guy is so afraid of going to jail for the rest of his life that he's going to take himself out in a blaze of glory.
He sits here and he talks to this hostage. They go take her and he talks to him.
Imagine this for 15 hours.
He doesn't try to intimidate him, he doesn't try to play mind tricks on him.
They just have a conversation.
And at the end of the conversation.
The hostage taker says something about his mother.
He says, yeah, my mother died a while ago.
And then Greg, our hostage negotiator, sees an opening. And authentically, he says, yeah.
I had my mom die on me too this last year. It was this really terrible, painful experience. And all of a sudden they bond, right?
The most unlikely two people in the world all of a sudden click. The police officer and the hostage taker. And they bond so intensely that at the end of the scenario, the guy finally gives himself up. And when he goes out, the SWAT team is ready, ready to pounce on him. And he says, wait, I want to give Greg a hug. And the SWAT team is still angry at Greg to this day. The fact that he actually gave the hostage taker a hug and he's saying, okay, so what's the big deal about people giving each other a hug? I would say the big deal is that when people are even artificially told to express a level of vulnerability, they.
Automatically form a connection.
And that connection again all of a sudden changes the tenor of the relationship. It brings in the soft power elevator.
