Dare to Lead - Brene Brown

Brene's work has been a game changer in how we see strength and relate to the world. No wonder the by line for this book is 'Brave work, Tough conversations, Whole hearts'. She starts with a talk she gave to some top officials of the military and felt she was not good enough when an assistant told her 'They're just people like you and me..real people with real lives and real problems.' Brene realised then that no one talks to these tough men about shame when everyone is up to their eyeballs in it. People are people.

Brene's formula for 'Daring Leadership' is through these four steps - Rumbling with vulnerability, Living into our values, Braving Trust and Learning to Rise. 

She says we cannot get courage without vulnerability. Self awareness and self love matter - who we are is how we lead. Courage is contagious - sets up a culture of brave work.  And she finally says that daring leaders must care for and be connected to people they lead.

Vulnerability myths - its a weakness, I don't d it, I can go it alone, one must trust before vulnerability, vulnerability is disclosure. 

To feel is to be vulnerable. Believing that vulnerability is a weakness is believing that feeling is a weakness.

Brene shares this story about how she once dealt with officers in the Air Force who spoke of being tired. When she asked them if they were feeling loneliness instead of tired, many raised their hand. It is a clear example of how we play into our roles and minimize these feelings.

Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behavior. 

Brene differentiates between Armoured Leadership vs Daring Leadership. Armoured leadership is about fear of failure couched as perfectionism, scarcity thinking, numbing, victim, knowing everything, criticism, using power over others, hustling, leading for compliance and control, weaponsing fear and uncertainty, rewarding exhaustion, tolerating discrimination, a fitting in culture, collecting gold stars, avoiding and leading from hurt. Daring leadership is about striving, empathy, compassion, gratitude, milestones, setting boundaries, integration, strong back and soft front, using power with, knowing your value, cultivating shared purpose, acknowledging, naming and normalising collective fear, modeling rest, cultivating a culture of belonging, inclusivity, giving gold stars, talking straight and taking action, leading from the heart.

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are framed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging and connection. We feel we are never good enough.

Guilt is that feeling of 'I did something bad'. Shame is 'I am bad.' A culture of shame also may have behaviors linked to Humiliation/Embarrassment/ Perfectionism/ Favoritism/ Gossiping/ Back Channeling/ Comparison/ Self worth tied to productivity / Harassment / Discrimination / Power over/ Bullying / Blaming / teasing / Cover Ups. Shame is systemic. In such cultures complicity is part of the culture, money and power trump ethics, accountability is dead, control and fear are management tools. 

Always give people a 'way out with dignity'. 

Brene says that shame cannot survive a healthy dose of empathy.    

Shame resilience is the ability to practice authenticity when we experience shame, to move through the experience without sacrificing our values, and to come out on the other side of the shame experience with more courage, compassion and conviction that we had going into it. Ultimately shame resilience is about moving from shame to empathy - the real antidote to shame.

Empathy is not connecting to our experience, its connecting to the emotions that underpin our experience. 

Brene gives out an Empathy skill set 
- To see the world as others see it, or perspective taking
- To be non-judgmental
- To understand another person's feelings 
- To communicate your understanding of that person's feeling
- Mindfulness

Practice self-compassion - talk to yourself the way you'd talk to someone you love

To improve empathy and shame resilience
- recognise shame and understand its trigger
- react with critical awareness
- reach out
- speaking shame

To become more empathetic one can practice curiosity and grounded confidence. Grounded confidence is the messy process of learning and unlearning, practicing and failing, and surviving a few misses.
Grounded confidence = Rumble skills+Curiosity+ Practice

Easy learning does not build strong skills   

Brene gives out a few Rumble starters where one can begin the vulnerable talk by saying - I am curious about..., tell me more..., I am wondering...

Practicing vulnerability is about becoming self-aware and engaging in tough conversations

Daring leaders who live into their values are never silent about hard conversations. One need not resort to hustling which is trying to prove, show that one is perfect, to please

Brene defines values as a way of being or believing that we hold most important. Living into our values means that we do more than profess our values, we practice them. She says we cannot live into values that we cannot name. For eg Integrity is choosing courage over discomfort. To live values - take values from just talk to behavior, being empathetic and self compassionate, getting good at receiving feedback. One must be able to take feedback however it is delivered and use it productively. Be brave enough to listen. There might be something valuable. Stay curious.

An inkling that someone is questioning our trustworthiness is enough to lock-down that person.

Brene's BRAVING inventory - Boundaries-Reliability-Accountability-Vault-Integrity- Non judgment-Generosity    

Whatever happens - trust yourself. 

When we have the courage to walk into our story and own it, we get to write its ending.

Brene's Learning t Rise formula consists of 
- Reckoning - knowing we are emotionally hooked
- Rumble - be ok with shitty first drafts which are confabulated, then slowly edit and reedit to truth
- Revolution - turnaround

...

As always much to learn from Brene's work. I love her idea of daring leadership and hope more and more leaders embrace this form of being which attracts everyone into the common purpose. I have started practising vulnerability a bit more and can see the sense of it in making connections. More power to Brene.