By: Harvey Miller, Red Rock Publishers
Leaders are routinely told to be vulnerable. Dr. Vanessa Ervin’s new book, Purpose Before Position, argues the advice is incomplete. Vulnerability, she writes, is “a double-edged sword,” and handled badly it erodes the trust it is meant to build.
Ervin, President and CEO of Carobell, uses three biblical figures as case studies: Samson, Saul, and Solomon. Their collapses, she argues, were gradual, the end of “a series of compromises, prideful silences, and slippery justifications.”
From those stories she draws six errors, each paired with a modern parallel:
- Confusing openness with obedience. Admitting a struggle while acting against it, like the executive who confesses poor work-life balance but keeps making decisions that harm his family.
- Offering excuses instead of ownership. Confessing a mistake and then shifting blame to the team or the market.
- Compromising core values for short-term peace. Diluting principles to avoid conflict or chase quarterly numbers.
- Exposing weakness without safeguards. Sharing sensitive struggles, such as financial trouble, with the wrong audience.
- Letting pride harden into isolation. Dropping mentors and dismissing board concerns because “they don’t understand my vision.”
- Concealing private failure until it becomes public. Hiding impropriety until an audit reveals it.
Her prescription is disciplined rather than dramatic. Own mistakes “immediately and fully,” pair confession with concrete repair, keep core values non-negotiable, and build a circle of advisors with permission to ask hard questions. One practical example: a 24-hour rule before responding to challenging feedback. She also insists on boundaries: share struggles with a board or mentor, not with subordinates who need to see steadiness. Above all, she stresses duration. “Trust is built through repeated proof of character, not single dramatic gestures.”
The book carries the theme into recovery. In a chapter on humility, Ervin lays out a seven-step process for a leader who has fallen: own the breach, make restitution, rebuild private disciplines, return to daily service, demonstrate consistent integrity, restate the organization’s purpose, and invite accountability. She warns against defensive explanations, cosmetic fixes such as PR statements without real change, and isolation. Her models are David, Peter, and Manasseh, leaders restored after failure.
A separate chapter addresses the opposite risk: paralysis. Citing David’s confrontation with Goliath, Ervin argues that waiting for permission can cost a leader momentum. She advises defining a decision framework in advance, mapping who decides and who advises, and running small pilots to build confidence, while cautioning against confusing caution with cowardice.
Even the wise can drift, she notes: Solomon’s quiet compromises eventually split his kingdom. The difference, Ervin says, lies in discipline, motive, and wisdom. For boards and executives weighing leadership risk, the message is straightforward: transparency without accountability, and confession without repair, will not hold up.
Her book Purpose Before Position is available on Amazon.
