The Power of Vulnerability
By Betsy Bertram
Working through the loss of her father, Betsy Bertram of Townsend Bertram & Company learned how to embrace the guts and compassion it takes to model true leadership in a family business.
Despite how much I wanted to separate the two, a family business and personal vulnerability are intrinsically interconnected. My parents started Townsend Bertram & Company in Carrboro, North Carolina, in 1988, the year after they were married. It was their love for each other, the outdoors and the Carrboro community that grew a successful business. They mortgaged their home and poured all their savings into the store.
What they did, that risk, is vulnerability at its best: the state of being exposed to the possibility of being harmed either physically or emotionally. My parents were vulnerable both physically and emotionally, risking not just their home but their hearts and their new marriage (there are plenty of warnings about the perils of going into business with your spouse). Their business was handcrafted. It was a physical representation of both my mom and my dad, and their love: They built the racks from cedar they collected on their property. They hand-painted homemade signs. They spent late nights renovating the space, which had once been a textile mill.
When they opened in September 1988 two weeks before their two-year wedding anniversary, it was not just their store the town fell in love with, but with my parents—because they were fully themselves, unafraid, believing wholeheartedly in the success of the store.
When I was 21 years old and started working at the shop, I wanted to be anything but the owner’s daughter. I went above and beyond to prove myself, always volunteering to be the first to vacuum, to clean the bathrooms, to pick up trash outside, to restock the socks for hours. I never told customers that I was the owner’s daughter, and I felt uncomfortable when people who knew our family well came in and talked about how much I was like my mom. I was hiding behind a mask, a facade of someone else, because I was trying to separate family from work.
In the fall of 2013, on the same day my mom said she was stepping back and moved me into a leadership position with two other team members, I found out my dad had cancer.
The next morning I went into the shop, eyes swollen from crying, trying to hold it together, to keep in the pain and terror I was feeling. At the time, I thought that strong leadership meant being stoic, putting on a smile and powering through. I maintained this perspective all through his first treatment, never breaking down at a staff meeting even as I kept both the team and the customers who came in every day asking about him updated on his health. I feared that I would break down in front of the tearful customers who loved my father, so I hid out in the office, pouring myself into work to distract myself from the pain I felt.
I managed to keep my mask on—and kept it on, even after the cancer went into remission. But three years later, the cancer came back in his spine. I worried once again. How could I be strong even as I felt my own bones crumbling? Not being vulnerable again meant sacrificing my true self. It was in my father’s last year of life that I finally learned that true strength lies is in total vulnerability.
When my father died it ripped my mask right off. And, despite the terror I felt about being exposed, I was respected more than ever. I stood in front of our team with tears in my eyes, giving everyone permission to grieve too, not just for my dad but for whatever losses they had experienced in their own lives.
I was finally modeling true leadership. By taking off my mask, I showed the kind of vulnerability and authenticity we want to see in our team. Instead of hiding out at home on hard days, I went into the shop with tear-streaked cheeks, knowing there was no separating our loss from the family business that had deep reminders of my dad immersed in it—in the smell of the cedar racks, in his paint splattered TB&C shirts tacked to cork boards, and in pictures of our family on camping trips throughout my childhood.
To be your full, vulnerable self is not an act of weakness. It’s one of great courage. Until we as leaders learn to remove our masks and lead with our hearts, we are merely managing instead of really leading and inspiring others to be their true selves. Maybe you too fear that vulnerability will break you. In my life experience, vulnerability has been the one thing that builds me and my team into our best selves.
Betsy Bertram is an adventurer, community builder, writer, speaker, and leader. In addition to her role as Brand Developer at Townsend Bertram & Company Adventure Outfitters, Betsy is a business consultant, a writer in the outdoor industry, a Kripalu yoga teacher, and an International Kiteboarding Organization certified kiteboarding instructor. She curates the Glass Top Counter blog and writes for SNEWS and The Voice. At Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, she will be speaking on the panels Shifting Power at The Camp on June 18 and The Future of the Outdoor Industry: Launching and Maintaining a Sustainable Career on June 19 at the Hyatt Regency Denver. To learn more about Betsy, visit her website.