Dare to Lead

by Brené Brown

Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential.

The epigraph of Daring Greatly is this quote from Theodore Roosevelt:4 It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again … who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

As Marcus Aurelius taught us, “What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Courage and fear are not mutually exclusive. Most of us feel brave and afraid at the exact same time. We feel vulnerable.

The word rumble has become more than just a weird West Side Story way to say, “Let’s have a real conversation, even if it’s tough.” It’s become a serious intention and a behavioral cue or reminder.

A rumble is a discussion, conversation, or meeting defined by a commitment to lean into vulnerability, to stay curious and generous, to stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving, to take a break and

when someone says, “Let’s rumble,” it cues me to show up with an open heart and mind so we can serve the work and each other, not our egos.

The real barrier to daring leadership is our armor—the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that we use to protect ourselves when we aren’t willing and able to rumble with vulnerability.

create a space in our schools and classrooms where all students can walk in and, for that day or hour, take off the crushing weight of their armor, hang it on a rack, and open their heart to truly being seen.

we should never underestimate the benefit to a child of having a place to belong—even one—where they can take off their armor. It can and often does change the trajectory of their life.

The skill sets that make up courage are not new; they’ve been aspirational leadership skills for as long as there have been leaders.

vulnerability as the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty,

Vulnerability is not winning or losing. It’s having the courage to show up when you can’t control the outcome.

If we engage with all feedback, regardless of the quality and intention, it hurts too much, and we will ultimately armor up by pretending it doesn’t hurt, or, worse yet, we’ll disconnect from vulnerability and emotion so fully that we stop feeling hurt. When we get to the place that the armor is so thick that we no longer feel anything, we experience a real death. We’ve paid for self-protection by sealing off our heart from everyone, and from everything—not just hurt, but love.

C. S. Lewis: To love at all is to be vulnerable.1 Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

I looked at these brave soldiers and said, “Vulnerability is the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

Complete silence. Crickets.

“No, ma’am. Three tours. I can’t think of a single act of courage that doesn’t require managing massive vulnerability.”

Myth #3: I can go it alone. The third myth surrounding vulnerability is “I can go it alone.”

authentic I mean the kind of connection that doesn’t require hustling for acceptance and changing who we are to fit in.

neuroscience researcher John Cacioppo when I was writing Braving the Wilderness. He dedicated his career to understanding loneliness, belonging, and connection, and he makes the argument that we don’t derive strength from our rugged individualism, but rather from our collective ability to plan, communicate, and work together. Our neural, hormonal, and genetic makeup support interdependence over independence.

“To grow to adulthood as a social species, including humans, is not to become autonomous and solitary, it’s to become ...

I’m going to get in trouble because I’m not even turning in his performance sheets.” I said, “Yeah. That sounds hard. How does it feel?”

so let’s try to figure out why I’m here, and if we can’t, I’m out.”

“Ethical decision making.” Bloody hell. I’m not going anywhere.

So if you don’t ‘do’ vulnerability, and/or you have a culture that thinks vulnerability is weakness, then it’s no wonder that ethical decision making is a problem.”

“Sorry about the umbrella shop. You’ll have to come back. London is lovely in the spring.”

“We trust the people who have earned marbles over time in our life.

It turns out that trust is in fact earned in the smallest of moments. It is earned not through heroic deeds, or even highly visible actions, but through paying attention, listening, and gestures of genuine care and connection.

Only after I capture the participants’ experiences do I try to place my theories in the existing research.

What I’ve found through research is that trust is built in very small moments, which I call “sliding door” moments, after the movie Sliding Doors.4 In any interaction, there is a possibility of connecting with your partner or turning away from your partner.

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?

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.

creating what we call a safe container by asking the team what they need to feel open and safe in the conversation.

Creating container

Edmondson coined the phrase psychological safety. In her book Teaming, she writes, Simply put, psychological safety makes it possible to give tough feedback and have difficult conversations without the need to tiptoe around the truth.

Psychological safety

In our container-building work, the team would review all of the items that they wrote down, then work together to consolidate and match items to come up with some ground rules. Items that frequently show up as things that get in the way of psychological safety in teams and groups include judgment, unsolicited advice giving, interrupting, and sharing outside the team meeting. The behaviors that people need from their team or group almost always include listening, staying curious, being honest, and keeping confidence. Dare to lead by investing twenty minutes in creating psychological safety when you need to rumble. Make your intention of creating safety explicit and get your team’s help on how to do it effectively.

Example of container!

one of my favorite rumble tools: “What does support from me look like?” Not only does it offer the opportunity for clarity and set up the team for success, asking people for specific examples of what supportive behaviors look like—and what they do not look like—it also holds them accountable for asking for what they need.

setting boundaries is making clear what’s okay and what’s not okay, and why.

“Say more.” Another favorite rumble tool. Asking someone to “say more” often leads to profoundly deeper and more productive rumbling. Context and details matter. Peel the onion. Stephen Covey’s sage advice still stands: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

vulnerability is the cradle of the emotions and experiences that we crave. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, and joy.

without vulnerability there is no creativity or innovation. Why? Because there is nothing more uncertain than the creative process, and there is absolutely no innovation without failure.

It’s very hard to have ideas.9 It’s very hard to put yourself out there, it’s very hard to be vulnerable, but those people who do that are the dreamers, the thinkers, and the creators. They are the magic people of the world.

Adaptability to change, hard conversations, feedback, problem solving, ethical decision making, recognition, resilience, and all of the other skills that underpin daring leadership are born of vulnerability.

So we’re not going to get flowers, and I think we should skip the fight, given our tight timeline.”

most of us avoid clarity because we tell ourselves that we’re being kind, when what we’re actually doing is being unkind and unfair.

Feeding people half-truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel more comfortable) is unkind.

I took a deep breath and leaned into the mother of all rumble tools—curiosity. “Tell me more about how this plays out for y’all. I want to understand.” I’m glad I asked. I needed to hear what they had to say, and they needed me to hear how frustrating,

I’ve found absolutely no benefit to pushing through a hard conversation unless there’s an urgent, time-sensitive issue at hand. I’ve never regretted taking a short break or circling back after a few hours of thinking time.

I’m not good at time or things with hard edges, like Tetris or Blokus. I don’t think that way or see the world that way. I see projects in constellations, not lines. I see plans the way I see data—relationally and with rounded corners and a million connection ports.

When Luke asks what’s in the cave, Yoda explains, “Only what you take with you.”