Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

by Brené Brown

During a time of difficult change and uncertainty, daring leaders might sit with their teams and say, These changes are coming in hard and fast, and I know there’s a lot of anxiety—I’m feeling it too, and it’s hard to work through. It’s hard not to take it home, it’s hard not to worry, and it’s easy to want to look for someone to blame. I will share everything I can about the changes with you, as soon as I can. I want to spend the next forty-five minutes rumbling on how we’re all managing the changes. Specifically, What does support from me look like? What questions can I try to answer? Are there any stories you want to check out with me? And any other questions you have? I’m asking everyone to stay connected and lean into each other during this churn so we can really rumble with what’s going on. In the midst of all of this we still need to produce work that makes us proud. Let’s each write down one thing we need from this group in order to feel okay sharing and asking questions, and one thing that will get in the way.

I’m not enough. If I’m honest with them about what’s happening, they’ll think less of me or maybe even use it against me. No way am I going to be honest about this. No one else does it. Why do I have to put myself out there? Yeah. Screw them. I don’t see them being honest about what scares them. And they’ve got plenty of issues. It’s actually their issues and shortcomings that make me act this way. This is their fault, and they’re trying to blame me. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m actually better than them. People think it’s a long walk from “I’m not enough” to “I’m better than them,” but it’s actually just standing still. In the exact same place. In fear. Assembling the armor. I don’t want to live in fear or lead from fear, and I’m sick to death of the armor. Courage and faith are my core values, and when I’m in fear I show up in ways that leave me feeling out of alignment with these values and outside my integrity. This is when I remember Joseph Campbell’s quote, which I believe is one of the purest calls to courage for leaders: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

All too often our so-called strength comes from fear, not love; instead of having a strong back, many of us have a defended front shielding a weak spine. In other words, we walk around brittle and defensive, trying to conceal our lack of confidence. If we strengthen our backs, metaphorically speaking, and develop a spine that’s flexible but sturdy, then we can risk having a front that’s soft and open….How can we give and accept care with strong-back, soft-front compassion, moving past fear into a place of genuine tenderness? I believe it comes about when we can be truly transparent, seeing the world clearly—and letting the world see into us.

For me, that strong back is grounded confidence and boundaries. The soft front is staying vulnerable and curious. The mark of a wild heart is living out these paradoxes in our lives and not giving into the either/or BS that reduces us. It’s showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, and, above all else, being both fierce and kind.

T—Who owns the task? A—Do they have the authority to be held accountable? S—Do we agree that they are set up for success (time, resources, clarity)? C—Do we have a checklist of what needs to happen to accomplish the task?

Paint done. For us, it’s significantly more helpful than “What does done look like?” because it unearths stealth expectations and unsaid intentions, and it gives the people who are charged with the task tons of color and context. It fosters curiosity, learning, collaboration, reality-checking, and ultimately success.

As Stuart Brown says, “The opposite of play is not work—the opposite of play is depression.”

True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are. The greatest barrier to true belonging is fitting in or changing who we are so we can be accepted. When we create a culture of fitting in and seeking approval at work, we are not only stifling individuality, we are inhibiting people’s sense of true belonging. People desperately want to be part of something, and they want to experience profound connection with others, but they don’t want to sacrifice their authenticity, freedom, or power to do it.

it is essential that leadership be one of the explicit priorities for anyone in a role with direct reports—it cannot be a tacked-on assumption or done in our spare time.

Daring leadership is leading from heart, not hurt.

Shame is watching things change so fast and no longer knowing how and where I can contribute. The fear of being irrelevant is a huge shame trigger that we are not addressing at work.

One reason emotion is difficult to identify and name is the iceberg effect. Think about an iceberg for a minute. There’s the part that you can see above the water, and then it potentially goes on for miles beneath the surface. Many of the emotions that we experience show up as pissed off or shut down on the surface. Below the surface, there’s much more nuance and depth. Shame and grief are two examples of emotions that are hard to fully express, so we turn to anger or silence.

To review, empathy is first: I take the perspective of another person, meaning I become the listener and the student, not the knower. Second: I stay out of judgment. And third and fourth: I try to understand what emotion they’re articulating and communicate my understanding of that emotion.

I agree to practice empathy, screw it up, circle back, clean it up, and try again. Make that commitment to yourself, your team, your friends, and your family. You have no idea how much it means to someone when you circle back and say, “You shared something hard with me, and I wish I had shown up in a different way. I really care about you and what you shared. Can I try again?” That’s daring leadership.

Learning how to rumble with vulnerability is work. And vulnerability never becomes comfortable, but practicing means that when vulnerability is washing over us, we can hear grounded confidence whisper in our ear, “This is hard and awkward, and uncomfortable. You may not know how it’s going to turn out, but you are strong and you have practiced what it takes to create and hold the space for this.”

We’re scared to have hard conversations because we can’t control the path or outcome, and we start coming out of our skin when we don’t get to resolution fast enough. It’s as if we’d rather have a bad solution that leads to action than stay in the uncertainty of problem identification.

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

If not me, then who? If not now, then when?

One of my courage behaviors is Don’t choose silence over what is right. It’s not my job to make others more comfortable or to be liked by everyone.

Value #1 ___________________________________ What are three behaviors that support your value? What are three slippery behaviors that are outside your value? What’s an example of a time when you were fully living into this value? Value #2 ___________________________________ What are three behaviors that support your value? What are three slippery behaviors that are outside your value? What’s an example of a time when you were fully living into this value?

There is an incredibly important, uncomfortable, and brave discussion that every single leader and every organization in the world should be having about privilege. The truth is, when I walk into the arena, I do not have the same experience as other people walking into the same arena. I’m white, I’m straight, I’m educated.

Who is someone who knows your values and supports your efforts to live into them? What does support from this person look like? What can you do as an act of self-compassion to support yourself in the hard work of living into your values? What are the early warning indicators or signs that you’re living outside your values? What does it feel like when you’re living into your values? How does living into your two key values shape the way you give and receive feedback?

I always bring my core values to feedback conversations. I specifically bring courage, which means that I don’t choose comfort over being respectful and honest—choosing politeness over respect is not respectful. Second, I allow people to have feelings without taking responsibility for those feelings.

“Take good care” has to do with how we take care of ourselves and each other: I treat my colleagues with respect and compassion by responding when appropriate in a timely and professional manner. I practice gratitude with my team and colleagues. I am mindful of other people’s time. You can see how this process takes lofty and subjective values and makes them real and actionable. Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.

Living BIG (boundaries, integrity, and generosity).

What boundaries need to be in place for me to be in my integrity and generous with my assumptions about the intentions, words, and actions of others?

Daring leaders work from the assumption that people are doing the best they can; leaders struggling with ego, armor, and/or a lack of skills do not make that assumption.

For now, it’s important to remember that there are no guarantees in the arena. We will struggle. We will even fail. There will be darkness. But if we are clear about the values that guide us in our efforts to show up and be seen, we will always be able to find the light. We will know what it means to live brave.

So, if trust is a “must-have” and many leaders experience the trust conversation as a “must-avoid,” what’s the solve? Get specific. Rather than rumbling generally about trustworthiness and using the word trust, we need to point to specific behaviors. We need to be able to identify exactly where the breach lies and then speak to it. The more exact we can be, the more likely it is that people can hear us, that we can give feedback on behavior and stay away from character, and that we can support real change.

Boundaries: You respect my boundaries, and when you’re not clear about what’s okay and not okay, you ask. You’re willing to say no. Reliability: You do what you say you’ll do. At work, this means staying aware of your competencies and limitations so you don’t overpromise and are able to deliver on commitments and balance competing priorities. Accountability: You own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends. Vault: You don’t share information or experiences that are not yours to share. I need to know that my confidences are kept, and that you’re not sharing with me any information about other people that should be confidential. Integrity: You choose courage over comfort. You choose what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy. And you choose to practice your values rather than simply professing them. Nonjudgment: I can ask for what I need, and you can ask for what you need. We can talk about how we feel without judgment. We can ask each other for help without judgment. Generosity: You extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others.

Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; it’s choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast, or easy; and it’s practicing your values, not just professing them.

When it comes to people who do not habitually ask for help, the leaders we polled explained that they would not delegate important work to them because the leaders did not trust that they would raise their hands and ask for help. Mind. Blown.

It has nothing to do with intelligence or competency or raw talent; it has everything to do with a relationship of trust.

We tell teams that they can each fill out the BRAVING Inventory worksheet (available online) individually, then share their answers as you build the team expectation worksheet, or the team can jump straight to building the team worksheet. Both ways work. This is a great example of building trust at the same time you’re operationalizing it.

When we have the courage to walk into our story and own it, we get to write the ending. And when we don’t own our stories of failure, setbacks, and hurt—they own us.

The reality check around our lovability: Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love us, it doesn’t mean that we are unlovable. The reality check around our divinity: No person is ordained to judge our divinity or to write the story of our spiritual worthiness. The reality check around our creativity: Just because we didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement doesn’t mean that we don’t possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. And just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn’t change its worth or ours.

The level of collective courage in an organization is the absolute best predictor of that organization’s ability to be successful in terms of its culture, to develop leaders, and to meet its mission. The greatest challenge in developing brave leaders is helping them acknowledge and answer their personal call to courage. Courage can be learned if we’re willing to put down our armor and pick up the shared language, tools, and skills we need for rumbling with vulnerability, living into our values, braving trust, and learning to rise. We fail the minute we let someone else define success for us. Like many of you, I spent too many years taking on projects and even positions, just to prove I could do it. I was driven by a definition of success that didn’t reflect who I am, what I want, or what brings me joy. It was simply accomplish-acquire-collapse-repeat. There was very little joy, very little meaning, and tons of exhaustion and resentment.

Make your joy and meaning list and make sure that you use it as you define success for yourself. I stray from my list way too often, and I’m still adding to it—it’s a lifelong practice. But it’s been the best filter for making choices when bright and shiny opportunities come my way. Now, I can ask myself if taking something on moves me closer to what brings me joy and meaning. This alone is a revolutionary act.