Stay Strong and Help Others

A friend said that to me recently.

She is dealing with her own illness. At the same time, she is caring for her old mother who tries not to burden anyone but results in becoming a heavier burden for those who love her the most. My friend shuttles between her own medical appointments and her mother's home, managing both without complaint. And her mother does not know her condition. Some silences are not secrets. They are acts of love.

Then she turned to me and said:

Stay strong and help others.

I sat with that for a long time.

The day before, I had been watching Brené Brown.

I first encountered her work around 2016. I was still working then, deep inside a corporate world that rewarded certainty, composure, and the appearance of having everything under control. Her TED talk on vulnerability did something uncomfortable to me. It named something I had been carrying for years without knowing what to call it.

My perfectionism.

I had always framed it as a strength. High standards. Attention to detail. Not accepting mediocrity. These are virtues in project management. They are practically in the job description.

But Brown said something that stopped me cold. She said perfectionism is not about self-improvement. It is about approval. It is the belief that if I do everything right, if I leave no edges exposed, then no one can criticise me. And if no one can criticise me, I will not have to feel shame.

I recognised myself immediately.

My friend's silence was not armour. It was protection. Mine was different — fear dressed up as standards. Fear of being seen as inadequate. Fear of being found out. The performance of competence as a defence against vulnerability. That recognition changed things.

Here is what I have learned since then.

Vulnerability is not weakness. It is not oversharing. It is not falling apart in front of your team or confessing your doubts in every meeting. It is something quieter and more precise than that. It is the willingness to be honest about what you do not know. To say I got that wrong. To ask for help before the situation becomes a crisis. To let the people around you see something real, not just a polished projection.

When I began to allow that — tentatively, with people I trusted — something shifted in my relationships. Not dramatically. But noticeably. People began to bring me their real problems rather than the sanitised versions. Conversations became more honest. The gap between what was said in meetings and what was said afterwards began to close.

I had been so focused on being the person with the answers that I had made it difficult for others to show up with their questions.

Project management culture is particularly susceptible to this trap.

We are trained to manage risk, anticipate failure, and present confidence to clients and stakeholders. There is a place for that. Clients need to trust that you have a handle on things. Teams need direction. Deadlines are real.

But there is a version of that professional composure that curdles into something damaging. Leaders who never show uncertainty create teams that hide problems. Leaders who project invulnerability create cultures where admitting difficulty feels like failure. And so, issues travel underground. By the time they surface, they are no longer manageable — they are crises.

I have seen this pattern more times than I can count. The project that looked fine on every status report until it suddenly wasn't. The team member who was struggling for months but said nothing because the culture did not make it safe to say so.

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Perfectionism at the top becomes silence throughout.

So, what do we do with my friend's words?

Stay strong and help others.

I do not think she is wrong. Strength is real. There are moments in leadership — and in life — that require you to hold steady when everything around you is uncertain. When your team is anxious, your composure matters. When a project is in trouble, panic is not useful. Strength is not a fiction.

But I think strength, the real kind, is not the absence of vulnerability. It is what happens when you stop pretending you have none.

My friend is one of the strongest people I know. And she is also carrying more than most people should ever have to bear. Her strength is not because she is untouched. It is because she continues, fully aware of what she is carrying. Quietly. Without making it visible to those she is protecting. Without asking for recognition.

Brené Brown changed something in me a decade ago. A friend's offhand phrase yesterday took me back to the years when I too carried things alone. Not out of love, as she does. But out of fear. Fear of being seen as less than I needed to appear.

The question I am sitting with now — and the one I leave with you — is this.

In your work, in your leadership, in your relationships: are you staying strong in a way that is actually keeping people at arm's length? Is your composure a gift to your team, or a wall between you?

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