Why sensitivity is the secret to success

Embracing and owning our vulnerabilities and authentic emotions can be the key to flourishing in our tough world, says Anna Bonet

What does strength mean to you? Being ballsy? Taking no prisoners? Manning up? Success, at any cost? Probably not, because that aggressive and ruthless version of power now feels incredibly outdated. As well as being antiquated, it’s also pretty counterintutive to most of us as women, because it doesn’t play to our strengths, which also happen to be our superpowers. Being sensitive, vulnerable and emotional used to be viewed as weaknesses, but increasingly they’re being seen as the secret to resilience and, in turn, success.

‘Nowadays, more and more of us are willing to admit our vulnerabilities,’ says Anita Moorjani, author of the recently released Sensitive Is The New Strong, a game-changing manifesto for embracing the power of sensitivity. ‘We’re being more open about our mental health, more open about our emotions and, with that, we’re slowly realising that being sensitive isn’t something to be ashamed of.’

As Oprah Winfrey has famously said, ‘I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.’ Winfrey, along with US author Brené Brown, has been heralded for championing the power of vulnerability, authenticity and showing (not suffocating) our feelings, which is widely recognised as having started this sea change.

Now, even here in the UK, home of the stiff upper lip, we’re taking much deeper dives into mental health, trauma, sadness and emotion than ever before. Be it on TV (Billie Piper’s I Hate Suzie and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You were huge lockdown hits) or thanks to the likes of presenter Fearne Cotton, podcaster Elizabeth Day and author Matt Haig – on the airwaves and in books, they have bravely spoken up about their own vulnerabilities and shown there is collective strength to be found in sharing personal challenges.

According to Moorjani, the idea that you must have those more ‘masculine’ traits to survive and thrive is all wrong. ‘To be sensitive is not the weakness it has long been made out to be,’ she says. ‘It’s actually a strength, if you just learn how to harness it.’ She urges that we start recognising just how many strengths sensitivity bestows us with: intuition, compassion, empathy and the ability to really listen being among them, and she says these strengths help us in life just as much as being assertive can.

This new way of looking at strength is well overdue. ‘When we see sensitivity as a weakness, then, by default, we also see empathy and compassion as weak, which means traits such as aggression, narcissism and selfishness are allowed to shine, so those are the ones we see reflected in power,’ says Moorjani. ‘Then we look around at the world and wonder how it has become so cruel.’

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is one of the few world leaders who gets it. ‘I think one of the sad things that I’ve seen in political leadership is – because we’ve placed so much emphasis on notions of assertiveness and strength – that over time we’ve assumed that means you can’t have those other qualities of kindness and empathy. I’m proudly focused on empathy, because I think you can be both empathetic and strong,’ she has said.

Ardern also believes that one of the biggest lessons she’s learned as a leader is that ‘you won’t necessarily get tougher’. When she first entered politics, she asked an MP who she regarded as a ‘tough cookie’ how he built his thick skin. ‘He was horrified,’ Arden recalled. ‘He said stuff still got to him, and that actually if stuff ever stopped getting to you then you’d probably lost your empathy, and it was never worth losing that. At that point, I decided that I didn’t necessarily want to build a tough exterior. The world doesn’t need a whole lot of massively thick-skinned politicians; they do need people who care. The odd sensitive flower is okay.’

President Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the US election is a case in point and speaks volumes about this huge societal shift. One of the reasons so many Americans responded to Biden was because he’d experienced personal loss and was prepared to talk about it. Crucially, he communicated his pain in a way that showed the public he was sensitive to their own. Even Trump’s alpha-male chest-beating couldn’t compete with that.

Dr Carole Pemberton, an expert in building resilience says that, although it sounds like the opposite, being sensitive and being resilient actually go hand-in-hand. ‘Resilience is sometimes misunderstood as the ability to be armoured against difficulty, but in fact it’s the capacity to remain flexible in our thoughts, behaviours and emotions when under stress,’ she explains. ‘Emotional resilience is not about cutting off emotions, it’s about experiencing emotions and then being able to regulate them.’

This is useful in the workplace, too, where there’s change afoot in the leadership styles that are not only being rewarded but also actively encouraged. Ruthless and headstrong bosses who refuse to fail are being replaced by managers who can ‘hang back and observe social dynamics,’ says Annie Ridout, author of Shy: How Being Quiet Can Lead To Success (Fourth Estate; out 15th April). ‘Sensitivity can help you notice when someone’s left out and needs extra support,’ she adds, ‘and in doing so, you can improve collaboration and the overall success of a team.’

A study by the Centre for Creative Leadership found that managers who practise empathetic leadership are now viewed as better performers in their jobs than those who are not, and multinational companies such as JP Morgan and Google are now fostering more supportive environments for their employees with in-house wellness managers. And it makes long-term business sense to keep your staff both happy and motivated.

‘If we build our armour around us in the hope that it will provide defences against feelings, it can work for a time,’ says Dr Pemberton. ‘However, eventually the cost of keeping that armour on will tell.’ So, if the armour has been used to avoid uncomfortable feelings, at some point, those feelings will find a way through and demand attention. ‘Otherwise, what happens is our skin becomes thicker and thicker to the point where we no longer experience emotions at all and we can’t recognise them in others either,’ she adds.

The word ‘sensitive’, as Dr Pemberton points out, comes from the French, sentir, which simply means to feel. ‘To be capable of feeling is a core aspect of being human,’ she says. How and when exactly it took on those undertones of weakness, it’s not quite clear. But by experiencing your emotions, rather than ignoring them, you’ll become more resilient in the long run. ‘If you allow yourself to feel, you’re also much less likely to break down later,’ explains Moorjani. ‘If you suppress your emotions, you’re really just repressing who you are. And you build up tension in your body when you do that, too, which makes it easier to snap.’

So, the next time you’re worried you’re being too sensitive, stop seeing it as a weakness. You don’t need to be obstinate, selfish or domineering to be strong or successful. Take your cues from Jacinda Ardern, Joe Biden, Oprah and the rest. Sensitivity is a superpower if you learn to celebrate the strength it actually gives you. Meanwhile, let’s start a new saying: ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get in touch with their emotions.’