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How Vulnerability Can Be a Leadership Superpower
Jason Rosario, founder of The Lives of Men, discusses how mental health, vulnerability, and masculinity intersect at work.
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Good leaders bring mentally healthy values to their teams and organizations. And that means showing weakness, at times, and facing the resulting risk of being perceived as a weak leader. But accessing that vulnerability is harder for some leaders than others.
In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Jason Rosario about his own journey with depression and anxiety, and the lessons he’s learned about vulnerability, masculinity, and leadership. Rosario left a career in finance to found The Lives of Men, a social impact and creative agency focused on decoding masculine psychology and challenging false concepts of masculinity.
HBR Presents is a network of podcasts curated by HBR editors, bringing you the best business ideas from the leading minds in management. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harvard Business Review or its affiliates.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: I’m Morra Aarons-Mele, and this is The Anxious Achiever. We look at stories from business leaders who have dealt with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges, how they fell down, how they picked themselves up, and how they hope workplaces can change in the future.
People often tell me, “You’re so candid and honest, how do you do it?” And I say, “Well, my privilege allows me to be candid about my depression and anxiety. I’m a well-off, heterosexual white woman with two Ivy league degrees.” Not only that, I grew up in a culture where therapy was literally part of the fabric of my family’s life. And not only that, I’m a woman. It’s easy for me to be open about my crazy, but it’s not enough for someone like me to be candid.
Part of the goal of this show is to remove some of the stigma that comes with all of this. And in many communities and in our culture at large, that’s much harder to do. Last season, we spoke to Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett and Nilofer Merchant about something called the anxiety of the “only” – the stress of being the only woman, the only person of color, the only person with a disability in an office, and the strain that comes attached to that. And how that strain is multiplied when you’re feeling anxious or depressed. For men of color to be open and honest about their mental health issues can be even harder.
Today’s guest is trying to tackle that problem. Jason Rosario is the founder and creative director of a company called The Lives of Men that has the mission of tackling toxic masculinity and challenging the myths around what it means to be a Black or Latino man. All of these issues are tied up with mental health, with an ability to be open about feelings and struggles and with ideas about what it means to be a man and to overcome struggle.
JASON ROSARIO: I think the one thing that I’ve learned doing this work is that men are probably the most sensitive creatures on the planet. We just don’t give ourselves credit or the license to admit that to ourselves and to the world. And so, as I do this work and start to peel back the layers of conditioning and socialization that I, as a man, have experienced and been subjected to, I’ve learned that about myself, and the more that I have had conversations with men about vulnerability and sensitivity and what true manhood means to them, I discovered that being sensitive is something that we all have in common.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: That’s so beautiful. And I have to say, I have two boys who are prepubescent, but with every year, I can see them being told to be tougher. And it just breaks my heart because they are way more sensitive than my daughter.
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s funny you mentioned that because there are studies that show that young boys before the age of five are actually more emotionally expressive than girls. And so, something happens at around age five or six, where they start to separate from that sensibility. So yeah, absolutely. It doesn’t surprise me you said that.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Jason, you have written that you’re a child of a violent household, and you wrote that you realize that machismo, which was, sort of, a characteristic that you attributed I think to your stepfather … Machismo, like any facet of patriarchy, destroys boys and men. And you noted as a grown-up that your abusive stepfather’s anger and treatment of your mom were results of that inability to express his deepest pain – maybe conditioning that he could not express that pain. And so I’m curious, how does this machismo conflict with mental health?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah. I mean, when you think about machismo and what it is at its core, it’s the pressure that men feel or hold from subscribing to old notions or traditional notions of masculinity – being stoic and being aggressive and not sensitive and not vulnerable. And so when you think about that, I look at that as having a direct relationship to the reasons why we suffer from depression and anxiety. Because it is the very thing that is opposite to what a human being, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman or what have you, is taught to do to be emotionally healthy. And that is to express themselves, to develop a wide range of emotional response systems, if you will. So, toxic masculinity, as it were, and I hate the term … but that and machismo are just the antithesis to that.
And so for me, growing up, doing the work, and looking back at my experience, I can only attribute his anger and the ways that he showed up in his relationship with my mother to not only subscribing to those traditional notions but also to having some socio-economic and social care, I guess, variables to deal with. As an immigrant man, he did not have a grasp of the English language and had to move about the world in ways that maybe he didn’t want to. So, there were a ton of pressures that I’m sure he was feeling. Not to absolve him of his behavior, but all of those things combined, I think, contributed to his anger and his pent-up aggression.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right, and to him probably feeling that he sometimes had lack of agency or lack of leadership when he was out in the world, and he could come home and take it out. I mean it’s got to get out somehow, I guess.
JASON ROSARIO: Exactly, exactly.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: So, I really want to focus on the workplace and leadership, because that’s the lens of this show, and mental health. Going back to the beginning of why you started The Lives of Men, can you talk about events in 2016, in 2017, and the roots of why you did this leap from your seemingly very lucrative career in finance?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah. Yeah. And oftentimes, I get a lot of questions about my own mental health in terms of leaving a lucrative career, but yeah. So, in 2016, the police shootings were occurring. And the beginnings of the current social-political landscape were happening. So, there was a lot of conversation in the zeitgeist around masculinity and men, particularly Black and Latino men. So, that coupled with the fact that I’ve always been present to my lived experience and how I showed up in the world, especially in corporate spaces – being 6’4″, being a Black man, I’m an Afro-Latino black man at that. Being very aware of that and how people reacted to me, all of that combined for me to say, “You know what. I wanted to create something that served as a platform for men like myself, who might have similar experiences, that can be an outlet. That can serve as a resource,” if you will.
And then you fast forward. So, I launched the brand in early 2017, and then a few months later, MeToo goes viral. And then all of a sudden, I’m in the middle of a public discourse around this conversation. And then mental health … athletes start to come out and start talking about mental health. And that becomes a thing. So, for me, it started with wanting to create something that was a platform that was selfishly my own medicine, something that I can fall back on first and foremost. And then I can turn around and package that experience in a way that other people can draw inspiration from. And then it just evolved into a platform that touched on some of these major issues that were happening in society. And so, it’s evolved now to become, what I’ll call, an impact agency that does work with centers of influence in the tech media and advertising space around this conversation of diversity inclusion and mental health allyship. That’s kind of the genesis behind it.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: And what about your own mental health? Was there a moment looking back of extreme anxiety in your own self that may have spurred you to do this work?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah. It’s funny because yeah, now looking back in hindsight, I can definitely point to instances that just weren’t normal. Growing up in the inner city, in the Bronx, that comes with a certain experience, and you have to become a chameleon and learn how to adapt just to survive. That’s traumatic in and of itself. So yeah, absolutely there were many instances that I can look back and point to. But in the moment, as I’m growing and becoming who I am, I’m not thinking about that. I’m just thinking about, if it’s my career, what do I need to do to be successful there. What do I need to do to take care of my family? What do I need to do for myself to become the best version of myself?
So for me, mental health, as it were, or whether or not I was suffering from depression or anxiety, was never a thought at the forefront of my mind. Only after I experienced a breakup, after I started to feel this despondency, if you will, with just the way I felt, that the weight of the world was on my shoulders, I started to really think about, “Well, what is it that I’m feeling? This doesn’t feel right. This doesn’t feel normal.” And I decided to just try therapy. And when I went to therapy, that was eye-opening because my therapist gave me language to articulate what I was feeling and why. So, for example, as a workaholic, to cope with my depression at times, I would want to drown myself in the work. And so for me, that was my introduction to the ways that mental health played a part in my journey.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Now, can you spot a trigger if you’re feeling depressed and have the urge to keep working? What does that feel like?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not just being a workaholic, but sometimes it’s just numbing myself and maybe spending money that I shouldn’t be spending or overeating. I know, for example, if I’m feeling a certain way, if I’m feeling heavy for a reason… If I just look at what I’m eating, if I’m eating healthy, I’m most likely feeling good about myself. If I’m not eating healthy, then there’s something that I need to really pay attention to. So, paying attention to my eating habits for me has been a really, really good way to gauge where I’m at mentally and emotionally.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: So, when you go in now and work with clients and on projects, what are some of the biggest stereotypes and misunderstandings that you see? How much of it is about men and power, who you’re dealing with, feeling like they need to cover up their mental health issues? Or are people just, sort of, willfully blind to men’s mental health and specifically men of color’s mental health?
JASON ROSARIO: That’s a great way to put it, being willfully blind. I think there is an element of that, for sure. Because I think that as men of color, we have different challenges in the workplace than the dominant culture does. But in terms of just… we’ll talk about men in general and how that shows up in the workplace. Masculinity and traditional notions of masculinity play out differently and in unique ways in corporate spaces. And so, I think we need to look at that and how that affects the ways we perform. So, when I look at leaders, for example, and when I speak to leaders or do a workshop or coaching sessions, I often ask them what their values are, first and foremost. What is it that they value, and what do they incentivize across their teams?
And if they’re incentivizing things like collaboration, things like trust and communication, to me that’s a great sign. Because it’s incentivizing healthy habits that are not traditionally ascribed to masculinity.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: I was going to say those are seemingly feminine qualities.
JASON ROSARIO: Right, right. Exactly, exactly. But if they’re incentivizing competition and excellence and… So, all the other things-
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Workaholism.
JASON ROSARIO: … Exactly. Those are red flags for me. So, I usually start with those types of questions and then work from there. But yeah, I just think that generally speaking, when we’re talking about mental health with men in the workplace, if we’re having a hard time admitting that we might struggle from depression or anxiety outside of work, then it definitely won’t happen at work. It’s because of the perceived notion of having so much to lose, the isolation that can come with, the perceived risks of not being considered a good leader, for example. Those are real concerns for men.
And so for us, it’s, again, trying to find ways to numb those pains and those traumas, if you will, for the sake of our career success and viability.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Is there a first question you always ask? What’s the way in to start-
JASON ROSARIO: How do you feel?
MORRA AARONS-MELE: … How do you feel?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: That’s something where we’re always taught to say, “I feel fine.”
JASON ROSARIO: Right, right. And so, the second question is, “How do you really feel?” And so, the other thing I do is I try to model behavior. I try to model what it could look like for them to be vulnerable in that space. So, I’ll usually tell a story or share something that I’m feeling particularly vulnerable about. So, that usually kind of starts to help create the space and the vibe in the room to allow for that level of vulnerability and sharing. So yeah, I think modeling behavior is really, really important, especially in workspaces.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Was there a leader in your life who modeled vulnerability and taught you?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah. And I don’t think he knows that.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Let’s tell him.
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah. So, he will hopefully listen to this one day, and I’ve just got to say, “Thank you.” So, thank you for asking that question. Because it just reminds me that maybe I should write him a note. But this leader in particular, and I won’t say his name, modeled behavior that I thought was just incredible, not just as a leader. As a manager, I worked so closely with this gentleman. He was a senior person at one of my last jobs, global head of the capital markets group there. And I got such an intimate view into his life by way of working with him in the way that I did. I got a chance to see how he was as a father, as a husband, not just as a leader.
And so, he brought a lot of those qualities into the workplace. So, when I look at… And a lot of my work is predicated on trying to create and establish new archetypes for leaders, for masculinity, especially in the workplace. To me, he brought the archetype of a father and caretaker into the space, because he really cared about people. And the art of writing handwritten notes, the art of checking in with you in the morning before you ask the status of a project, checking in with you about what’s going on at home, remembering my family’s name. I mean, things like that. So, for me, he modeled just strong, nurturing, masculine behavior that does exist but doesn’t really exist inside of corporate spaces. So, I want to give him a shout-out because he was incredible.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: I guess what has to be done, to help not just men in leadership but all people in leadership in corporate America, is to be more public and be more vulnerable publicly.
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah. Wow. That’s hard. I mean, I’d start with … We have to really think about, again, what we incentivize at work, what values we hold to be true. But I also think that fundamentally … So shifting away from a zero-sum game, the idea that as professionals who are in our careers and are wanting to be successful … There’s a fundamental idea in certain spaces that I’ve been a part of, that there isn’t enough out there for everyone. And that’s, to me, a competition that fosters and engenders something really damaging. And so for me, part of the shift has to be that fundamental shift away from the competitive, cut-throat environments that exist in some corporate spaces and moving towards a more collaborative approach to building and growing together.
And that might sound super esoteric and existential, but I do believe that there’s got to be a softness that we have to cultivate at work. On one side, it does increase the pie for everyone so that no one feels like they have to sacrifice to give to another. But I just think that we’ve got to adopt a different mentality as far as how we approach our careers and our work. And I don’t know if that’s something that happens in my lifetime, but I want to take a piece of that shift, by way of the work that I’m doing with men and vulnerability, to help usher that in. If that makes sense.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: More pie.
JASON ROSARIO: That’s it. More pie.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Not everyone going after one piece of pie.
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: But you referenced this earlier. It sounds like when you were growing up, there certainly wasn’t an overflow of pie, and you probably had to fight pretty hard. You have an MBA from NYU. You’ve achieved a lot. How do you see … When you go in and work with achievers, how does the pressure to succeed impact the mental health of the men you work with? Because there is the very real need to drive yourself forward to get somewhere in corporate America or anywhere.
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah. Well, there’s an exercise that I do where I ask them to name their fears and put them up on a dry erase board. And just as many as come up, I try to, kind of, write them out and then have them see that. So, that comes out. So now, that’s out of your body, it’s out of your psyche. And so, you can put it outside of yourself and observe it and detach yourself from that. So, once we do that, then we get into an exercise of really understanding what they value. And going back to that conversation or the topic around increasing the pie, oftentimes, it’s not about finances. And I think when you do that exercise with men and put their anxieties up on that whiteboard, I ask them, “Well, what do you value? Which of these risks do you think are going to be so egregious that is going to affect your livelihood?”
And none of them tend to … Because what you realize is that they start to talk about things like, “I want to spend time with my family. I want to spend time contributing back to the communities that I come from.” So, it’s really about redefining what success means to them and helping them think about adopting an abundance mindset. But then also, what other ways can you measure success that are not financial? And I think when you look at that picture holistically, it starts to really give men license to disassociate or separate themselves from the pressures that they feel of having to perform. And so, that’s my way of doing it. But I think that seems to work. That seems to be impactful because it really just gets down to the core of a humanity that we all share. Whether you’re a man or woman, you share that sense of wanting to do good and wanting to feel like you belong to a community, to your family, to friends. I think all of those things are important.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: So, it’s not about money?
JASON ROSARIO: No.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Money isn’t the number one-
JASON ROSARIO: No.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: …that goes up on that board? That is so interesting to me.
JASON ROSARIO: It never is. It never is. I mean, I wouldn’t say never, oftentimes it is. But it’s not the first thing that comes up.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: What kind of pushback do you get from your clients? If your work makes them uncomfortable or if it makes people uncomfortable, do you get pushback, and how do you combat that?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah, I mean, that’s just it. So, we were living in a time where men are still having to grapple with very serious topics and conversations. And I think that’s what MeToo has done that I love, that I absolutely think is a positive. And that is, it’s given us a gift and an opportunity to look at ourselves deeply. A lot of men are still grappling with that. And so the pushback is, yeah … I think you’ve also read this in the news often that men are avoiding having closed-door meetings with women, mentoring women, and hiring women. So, that tends to be the pushback. “I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t want to do something where it’s going to be perceived wrongly.”
And I think that though that is a very real concern, I also think it’s somewhat of a cop-out. Because when you think about having a meeting with a woman, say, at work, you as a man, as an individual, as a human being … I think we all have enough emotional intelligence or should be doing the work to develop the emotional intelligence, to know what’s right and what’s wrong. And when you’re saying or doing something that might make someone uncomfortable, one of the biggest pushbacks is, “Well, we don’t know what to do.” Well, it starts with you doing the self-reflective work for yourself and on yourself to develop the EQ that you need. But, I just think retreating is not the answer. It’s about confronting these issues. And I think we’re still at a point in our time with this conversation that it’s still evolving, but I do think people are being more receptive to it.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Was there a moment in one of your workshops or a situation where someone was a really tough nut to crack? Like you felt this person was resisting you, and they had a breakthrough? Can you talk about that?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah, there was an instance where I saw a young man display a level of vulnerability that was surprising to me. So in 2018, I hosted a conference for men, a mental health and wellness conference. And ten minutes into the conference where the keynote is happening, this gentleman is asked to come up to the middle of the room, with 250 people in the room. And he’s engaging in conversation with the keynote speaker. He asked him some questions, and he gets to talking about his experience with his mother and her struggles with mental health.
And I know this gentleman from college. He was a tough guy, super muscular, and athletic – all the things that you would ascribe to a traditional guy. But he started to talk about his mom, and he was super, I mean … he just transformed. And he got to the point where he was just crying in front of the room and really set the tone for the rest of the conference. So for me, that was a flag. It was just like, “Hey, Jason. You’re onto something here.” Because regardless of how men look physically or present outwardly, again, I think it started the conversation. We were all sensitive creatures and much more sensitive than the world gives us credit for. And that was an example of that. So, I’m really proud of being involved in that moment.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: And also the modeling, right?
JASON ROSARIO: Right.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Because he modeled and then, as you said, set the stage for other people to be vulnerable in a way they may not have been otherwise.
JASON ROSARIO: 100%.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: I want to go back to … Did you start therapy around that 2016 time? Or was that earlier?
JASON ROSARIO: No, I had been going to therapy before that. I think I started my first therapy session in 2007.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Interesting. And do you mind sharing what triggered that? Was that the start of your journey?
JASON ROSARIO: I think the start of my journey was way before that. But for me, it was just traumatic experiences. And for a lot of men, it tends to be the loss of a job, loss of a parent or loved one, or a breakup. And for me, it was a breakup. And yeah, I just needed to… It was a tough one. It was one in which … and I’ll share again, I don’t know any other way but to be vulnerable. But the first thing that you hear when you’re a man is when you go through a breakup, you go sleep around until you get over it, and then you move on. And most men … I know a lot of men that have done that. I’ve been that guy, as well. And I just didn’t want to do that again. It just didn’t serve me.
And so, I wanted to try something different. It’s the age-old adage, if you keep doing something and getting the same results, you must be insane. And so, I just wanted to try something different and decided to try therapy. And I was never, to my credit, one to think about therapy or look at therapy as some, sort of, admission of weakness. It was just that I’ve never considered it. And so, I decided to do that – probably the best thing that I decided to do. And what I found was that we spent more time in those sessions talking about everything else, all but the breakup. It was about getting to the root of how I co-created my life. And that was probably one of the most sobering moments in my life, for sure.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Wow, Jason. Can you give the, sort of, elevator pitch about what The Lives of Men is and what you do?
JASON ROSARIO: Absolutely. Well, The Lives of Men is a social impact and creative agency, and we work with brands to help them unlock the best of their brand from the inside out. We work with brands to help them think through their product, their design, and their strategy with modern masculinity insights in mind. And we also engage in conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion internally to unlock culture.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: In your mind, what would your success in this venture look like for mental health and wellness for men of color and then, more broadly, for men in general?
JASON ROSARIO: Yeah, I think I won’t see it in my lifetime because I think this is just a really big wrestle against the machinery that has conditioned men for centuries and eons before me and will continue to after me. I think success is … one, how I feel. “Do I feel like I’ve left it all out on the field, and did I put my best foot forward?” “Yes.” So I can check that box. “Am I impacting people’s lives?” “I think I am.” People are responding to the messages that I’m putting out there and really coming back to me and saying, “Thank you, because I’ve never considered going to therapy. I’ve never considered vulnerability as a superpower. I’ve always looked at it as a weakness.” So, those things are working. So yeah, I don’t know if success is … and again, going back to redefining it. It’s not a financial thing for me.
Of course, I’d love to make a great living doing what I do, but it’s really about leaving the world in a better place than I found it. And also, and this is going to sound a little bit esoteric, but I also am doing a lot of work spiritually to detach myself from the feeling or the desire to be the person that shifts this conversation in this culture. I am comfortable with just being one of the people that has ushered in this new ideology and this new mindset. I’m comfortable with that. I don’t need to be known as “the guy.” I just want to be one of the vanguard of guys. So for me, that’s success.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: That’s it for this week’s show. If you like what you’ve heard, be sure to subscribe and submit a review in Apple podcasts or wherever you get your shows. And if you have an idea for the show or want to tell us your story, drop me a note at anxiousachiever@gmail.com, or you can tweet me @morraam. That’s M-O-R-R-A-A-M. Special thanks to the team at Harvard Business Review, my producer Mary Dooe, the team at Podcast Garage, and all of our guests who are telling us their stories from the heart.
From the HBR Presents Network, I’m Morra Aarons-Mele, and this is The Anxious Achiever.