August 11, 2025 • 11 mins
A lecturer faced classroom distractions, feeling his internal authority waver. Instead of asserting external power, he acknowledged his vulnerability, fostering connection. Leadership, often linked to influence, requires internal strength and boundary management. Leaders may falter, seeking external authority, but authentic engagement and vulnerability can stabilize and enhance leadership efficacy, fostering collective decision-making.
#leadership, #vulnerability, #authority, #authenticity, #classroom, #connection, #influence
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Colig Experience podcast. In today's episode, we're diving into bold insights,
(00:10):
experimentation and groundbreaking leadership strategies that redefine how we lead and influence.
We'll explore how internal authority and vulnerability can transform leadership dynamics,
featuring stories from a lecturer who embraced honesty in the face of challenge and leaders
who broke boundaries to foster genuine dialogue. Let's dive in.
(00:33):
Let's start with a story based on a true case. Picture a lecturer in a classroom of students
in an advanced program. An impressive person, a profound scholar, one of the senior figures in
his field in the country, and also a gracious lecturer. At a certain point during the lecture,
(00:53):
movement begins in the room. Someone gets up to make coffee, someone enters late creating a
small commotion, and in the corner of the classroom, a conversation develops between two or three
people, adding to the feeling of lost attention. From those moments that anyone who lectures
knows well comes that feeling that you're losing your audience. This wasn't a particularly
(01:18):
dramatic event. That same lecturer could have ended the situation with a small call for order.
But that's not what he did. Instead, he was silent for a few moments and then said this
sentence, Right now I feel that my internal authority is trembling. You can talk for hours
(01:38):
about leadership and authority, but very rarely can you learn so much about them from one small
sentence. Let's leave this story for now. We'll return to it later. Leadership has many faces.
It comes to expression in a variety of ways and forms. Without getting into overly formal definitions,
it seems we can agree that the essence of leadership is influencing the environment to
(02:02):
move in a certain direction. Those who are in significant leadership positions have some
internal strength that radiates to the environment and influences it. At Coley, we call this the
gravitational force of leadership. The thing is that leadership, like other human traits or
qualities, doesn't always come to expression in a coherent and constant way. Does every person
(02:29):
have the potential to be a leader? Maybe. Does everyone who has this potential necessarily
realize it all the time? Probably not. Sometimes these internal forces that we call by the collective
name of leadership come to expression in a way that advances our goals, but sometimes those
same forces work in exactly the opposite direction. Why does this happen? Because leadership regularly
(02:54):
raises the basic question about the permission we give ourselves to influence the people around us.
In parentheses, let's say that for certain types, formal management, the kind that has
external authority to make decisions for others, is harder than leadership without authority.
When we manage others, we regularly grapple with the question of the authority given to us to make
(03:17):
decisions for those people. For some, this is an unresolved issue that accompanies them throughout
their entire career. This internal permission to be a leader, to guide our environment toward
the goals we've set, is significantly connected to issues of authority and boundaries.
Where's the connection to boundaries? If you ask CEOs, you'll hear from them that a central part
(03:42):
of their work is related to breaking boundaries and challenging conventions and rules.
The thing is that breaking boundaries has a price. Boundaries and frameworks are very basic,
human psychological needs. They protect us from experiencing feelings of disconnection,
arbitrariness, and lack of control, which might arouse anxiety in us and paralyze us.
(04:07):
Leaders apparently have the ability to be in this space where boundaries aren't clear and to return
home safely, except that everything has a price and nothing comes for free. If we're occupied,
a significant part of our time with breaking boundaries and leading people beyond those
boundaries, and if we don't invest in processing this experience, it might surface and come to
(04:31):
expression in various and strange ways. Believe us, completely strange, let us explain.
Dr. Angelus Ariane, a researcher, anthropologist, and psychologist who studied indigenous cultures
throughout the world, she wrote, among other things, the book The Fourfold Way, in which she
(04:54):
describes four leadership archetypes that she identified in her research. One of these types
is the warrior. The warrior is what we in western culture call a leader. The central
characteristic of the warrior is their presence. Sometimes the most interesting part of analyzing
(05:14):
Ariane's archetypes is their shadow side. The shadow side is the state where the warrior's
presence doesn't come to expression, and instead other behavioral patterns appear.
Every leader has those buttons that, if pressed, precisely the shadowed parts of their leadership
will come to expression. Ariane points to three such shadow patterns that the warrior has difficulty
(05:39):
with authority, rebelliousness, and invisibility. It's interesting to explore all three, but today
we'll settle for just the third, invisibility, the cases where the leader takes a step back,
and instead of being in full presence, they become silent and disappear. When this happens live,
(05:59):
we hear from them very sophisticated explanations for why their avoidance of presence and action is
the right thing. But it's clear to us, and usually to them too, that the simple truth is that in that
moment their leadership simply disappears. Everyone has those moments where the situation
is difficult for us, and we'd prefer not to be in it. These are situations that challenge our
(06:25):
leadership, and for some of us the natural tendency will be to find a way not to experience the
situation, and we're very creative when something stresses us. This is natural and understandable,
except that senior managers, leaders, don't always have the privilege of not being present,
and the problem is that if we're not practiced or aware of this state, our reactions might come out
(06:49):
in not so successful ways. We worked with a software startup where the CTO, brilliant technically but
new to leadership, would literally disappear during difficult engineering meetings. When the team faced
a critical architecture decision that could make or break their product launch, instead of facilitating
(07:09):
the discussion, he'd suddenly remember urgent emails to answer or calls to make. The team was
left rudderless at exactly the moments they needed direction most. When we helped him recognize this
pattern, he learned to stay present even when the technical debates felt overwhelming, and the team's
(07:29):
decision making improved dramatically. Let's return to the lecturer from the story at the beginning
of the article. We were at the part where he shared with the students that, right now I feel that my
internal authority is trembling. This was probably his experience at that moment. His presence disappeared.
(07:51):
One of his central leadership tools suddenly stopped working and he felt helpless facing the
situation. We're sure that any manager can identify with the story and with the feeling it creates.
Sometimes something challenges our internal authority to be in a position of leadership,
to lead, to expect the audience to follow us. Many times the first reaction will be to grasp
(08:15):
external authority, the one granted by the system. In the case of our acquaintance, the lecturer,
he could have asked for quiet and concentration, and it probably would have worked. The thing is that
this request would have stemmed from the external authority given to him by being the lecturer,
while the others are students. But external authority is connected to formal power,
(08:40):
and we already know it has an effectiveness limitation. The beauty in that lecturer's response
is that he didn't get pressured by the situation, and he didn't immediately turn to use his power.
On the contrary, he simply laid the truth on the table, honestly and courageously. He told us in a way
(09:01):
we could connect to that what was happening in the classroom space was unsettling him and causing
him to feel that his leadership presence was slipping away from him, and this was a difficult
feeling. In other words, instead of trying to take control of the event through the external
authority he has as a lecturer in the classroom, he turned to his internal authority by making
(09:26):
present what he was feeling in front of all of us. In another case, we worked with a biotech company
where the head of clinical development was facing pushback from her team about a risky trial design.
Instead of pulling rank or citing regulatory requirements, she said,
I'm feeling uncertain about this decision too, and that uncertainty is making me want to just
(09:50):
impose my will rather than work through this together. That moment of vulnerability opened up
a conversation that led to a modified protocol that was both scientifically sound and had full
team buy-in. Whether you call it internal authority or use another expression for the same thing,
in management courses they teach us not to lead only through our external authority
(10:13):
and formal power. This is pretty trivial. The thing is that sometimes it doesn't work,
and here the ability not to be tempted to return to our power, but instead to expose precisely the
weakness is a wonderful ability that apparently exists in those who have a stable center that guides
(10:34):
them. We're not sure this is the solution for every situation, but next time you feel that the
environment is causing your internal authority to tremble before you try to calm it with force,
maybe it's worth considering sharing with the environment what you're going through.
You might be surprised by what happens.
(10:58):
This is the end of today's podcast. We've explored how true leadership stems from
internal authority and presence rather than relying solely on external power,
highlighting the importance of honesty and vulnerability in effective leadership.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode with your friends and colleagues
(11:19):
so they can also stay updated on the latest news and gain powerful insights. Stay tuned for more updates.
Welcome to the Colig Experience podcast. In today's episode, we're diving into bold insights,
(00:10):
experimentation and groundbreaking leadership strategies that redefine how we lead and influence.
We'll explore how internal authority and vulnerability can transform leadership dynamics,
featuring stories from a lecturer who embraced honesty in the face of challenge and leaders
who broke boundaries to foster genuine dialogue. Let's dive in.
(00:33):
Let's start with a story based on a true case. Picture a lecturer in a classroom of students
in an advanced program. An impressive person, a profound scholar, one of the senior figures in
his field in the country, and also a gracious lecturer. At a certain point during the lecture,
(00:53):
movement begins in the room. Someone gets up to make coffee, someone enters late creating a
small commotion, and in the corner of the classroom, a conversation develops between two or three
people, adding to the feeling of lost attention. From those moments that anyone who lectures
knows well comes that feeling that you're losing your audience. This wasn't a particularly
(01:18):
dramatic event. That same lecturer could have ended the situation with a small call for order.
But that's not what he did. Instead, he was silent for a few moments and then said this
sentence, Right now I feel that my internal authority is trembling. You can talk for hours
(01:38):
about leadership and authority, but very rarely can you learn so much about them from one small
sentence. Let's leave this story for now. We'll return to it later. Leadership has many faces.
It comes to expression in a variety of ways and forms. Without getting into overly formal definitions,
it seems we can agree that the essence of leadership is influencing the environment to
(02:02):
move in a certain direction. Those who are in significant leadership positions have some
internal strength that radiates to the environment and influences it. At Coley, we call this the
gravitational force of leadership. The thing is that leadership, like other human traits or
qualities, doesn't always come to expression in a coherent and constant way. Does every person
(02:29):
have the potential to be a leader? Maybe. Does everyone who has this potential necessarily
realize it all the time? Probably not. Sometimes these internal forces that we call by the collective
name of leadership come to expression in a way that advances our goals, but sometimes those
same forces work in exactly the opposite direction. Why does this happen? Because leadership regularly
(02:54):
raises the basic question about the permission we give ourselves to influence the people around us.
In parentheses, let's say that for certain types, formal management, the kind that has
external authority to make decisions for others, is harder than leadership without authority.
When we manage others, we regularly grapple with the question of the authority given to us to make
(03:17):
decisions for those people. For some, this is an unresolved issue that accompanies them throughout
their entire career. This internal permission to be a leader, to guide our environment toward
the goals we've set, is significantly connected to issues of authority and boundaries.
Where's the connection to boundaries? If you ask CEOs, you'll hear from them that a central part
(03:42):
of their work is related to breaking boundaries and challenging conventions and rules.
The thing is that breaking boundaries has a price. Boundaries and frameworks are very basic,
human psychological needs. They protect us from experiencing feelings of disconnection,
arbitrariness, and lack of control, which might arouse anxiety in us and paralyze us.
(04:07):
Leaders apparently have the ability to be in this space where boundaries aren't clear and to return
home safely, except that everything has a price and nothing comes for free. If we're occupied,
a significant part of our time with breaking boundaries and leading people beyond those
boundaries, and if we don't invest in processing this experience, it might surface and come to
(04:31):
expression in various and strange ways. Believe us, completely strange, let us explain.
Dr. Angelus Ariane, a researcher, anthropologist, and psychologist who studied indigenous cultures
throughout the world, she wrote, among other things, the book The Fourfold Way, in which she
(04:54):
describes four leadership archetypes that she identified in her research. One of these types
is the warrior. The warrior is what we in western culture call a leader. The central
characteristic of the warrior is their presence. Sometimes the most interesting part of analyzing
(05:14):
Ariane's archetypes is their shadow side. The shadow side is the state where the warrior's
presence doesn't come to expression, and instead other behavioral patterns appear.
Every leader has those buttons that, if pressed, precisely the shadowed parts of their leadership
will come to expression. Ariane points to three such shadow patterns that the warrior has difficulty
(05:39):
with authority, rebelliousness, and invisibility. It's interesting to explore all three, but today
we'll settle for just the third, invisibility, the cases where the leader takes a step back,
and instead of being in full presence, they become silent and disappear. When this happens live,
(05:59):
we hear from them very sophisticated explanations for why their avoidance of presence and action is
the right thing. But it's clear to us, and usually to them too, that the simple truth is that in that
moment their leadership simply disappears. Everyone has those moments where the situation
is difficult for us, and we'd prefer not to be in it. These are situations that challenge our
(06:25):
leadership, and for some of us the natural tendency will be to find a way not to experience the
situation, and we're very creative when something stresses us. This is natural and understandable,
except that senior managers, leaders, don't always have the privilege of not being present,
and the problem is that if we're not practiced or aware of this state, our reactions might come out
(06:49):
in not so successful ways. We worked with a software startup where the CTO, brilliant technically but
new to leadership, would literally disappear during difficult engineering meetings. When the team faced
a critical architecture decision that could make or break their product launch, instead of facilitating
(07:09):
the discussion, he'd suddenly remember urgent emails to answer or calls to make. The team was
left rudderless at exactly the moments they needed direction most. When we helped him recognize this
pattern, he learned to stay present even when the technical debates felt overwhelming, and the team's
(07:29):
decision making improved dramatically. Let's return to the lecturer from the story at the beginning
of the article. We were at the part where he shared with the students that, right now I feel that my
internal authority is trembling. This was probably his experience at that moment. His presence disappeared.
(07:51):
One of his central leadership tools suddenly stopped working and he felt helpless facing the
situation. We're sure that any manager can identify with the story and with the feeling it creates.
Sometimes something challenges our internal authority to be in a position of leadership,
to lead, to expect the audience to follow us. Many times the first reaction will be to grasp
(08:15):
external authority, the one granted by the system. In the case of our acquaintance, the lecturer,
he could have asked for quiet and concentration, and it probably would have worked. The thing is that
this request would have stemmed from the external authority given to him by being the lecturer,
while the others are students. But external authority is connected to formal power,
(08:40):
and we already know it has an effectiveness limitation. The beauty in that lecturer's response
is that he didn't get pressured by the situation, and he didn't immediately turn to use his power.
On the contrary, he simply laid the truth on the table, honestly and courageously. He told us in a way
(09:01):
we could connect to that what was happening in the classroom space was unsettling him and causing
him to feel that his leadership presence was slipping away from him, and this was a difficult
feeling. In other words, instead of trying to take control of the event through the external
authority he has as a lecturer in the classroom, he turned to his internal authority by making
(09:26):
present what he was feeling in front of all of us. In another case, we worked with a biotech company
where the head of clinical development was facing pushback from her team about a risky trial design.
Instead of pulling rank or citing regulatory requirements, she said,
I'm feeling uncertain about this decision too, and that uncertainty is making me want to just
(09:50):
impose my will rather than work through this together. That moment of vulnerability opened up
a conversation that led to a modified protocol that was both scientifically sound and had full
team buy-in. Whether you call it internal authority or use another expression for the same thing,
in management courses they teach us not to lead only through our external authority
(10:13):
and formal power. This is pretty trivial. The thing is that sometimes it doesn't work,
and here the ability not to be tempted to return to our power, but instead to expose precisely the
weakness is a wonderful ability that apparently exists in those who have a stable center that guides
(10:34):
them. We're not sure this is the solution for every situation, but next time you feel that the
environment is causing your internal authority to tremble before you try to calm it with force,
maybe it's worth considering sharing with the environment what you're going through.
You might be surprised by what happens.
(10:58):
This is the end of today's podcast. We've explored how true leadership stems from
internal authority and presence rather than relying solely on external power,
highlighting the importance of honesty and vulnerability in effective leadership.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode with your friends and colleagues
(11:19):
so they can also stay updated on the latest news and gain powerful insights. Stay tuned for more updates.
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