Vulnerability and Trust

As you start up the new year, ask this chicken-egg question…

Which comes first? Vulnerability or trust?

Does willingness to be vulnerable engender trust? Or can you only be vulnerable when you have amassed sufficient trust?

We can agree, at least, that both are important traits of the successful choir:

A good choir connects with their listeners by being emotionally vulnerable. 

A good choir produces the music it is capable of only when singers trust those around them.

The answer is that these traits feed each other. It’s not one or the other, it’s both and. Without vulnerability, you cannot share enough to create trust. Without trust, you will not be willing to make yourself vulnerable.

Your singers rely on you to start this positive feedback loop. Be vulnerable with them. Trust them. Encourage vulnerability and trust from them in return.

Then stand back and watch the vulnerability, the trust, and the music grow.