2The Vulnerable Leader Equation
On August 20, 1991, Hollis Harris, then CEO of Continental Airlines, told his 42,000 employees to pray for the future of the company. In his memo to employees he said, “We are in a battle here at Continental. We are at war with forces within the company and outside the company.”
As Doug Parker, the chairman and former CEO of American Airlines told me, this is being vulnerable, but it's not being a leader. The next day Hollis was fired.
If Hollis was a junior employee who worked in accounting, then those statements would have had minimal impact. Some employees may have taken notice, maybe some would have taken him out to lunch to ask him why he's having a bad day, and he would have received some words of encouragement and support from his leader and life would have moved on. When you're a leader the things you say and do carry more weight and have more impact.
Doug had to go through his fair share of challenges as the CEO of American Airlines including going before Congress and the world to ask for money and support to keep the company from going bankrupt during the pandemic. There were many times he found himself in the parking lot of his company pumping himself up before heading into work and actually trying to suppress his vulnerability. He told me,
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