Paperback, 320 pages
English language
Published Dec. 4, 2018 by Vermilion.
In her #1 NYT bestsellers, Brené Brown taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead.
Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.
When we dare to lead, we don't pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don't see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it and work to align authority and accountability. We don't avoid difficult …
In her #1 NYT bestsellers, Brené Brown taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead.
Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.
When we dare to lead, we don't pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don't see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it and work to align authority and accountability. We don't avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into the vulnerability that’s necessary to do good work.
But daring leadership in a culture that's defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty requires building courage skills, which are uniquely human. The irony is that we're choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the same time we're scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines can't do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection and courage to start.
Brené Brown spent the past two decades researching the emotions that give meaning to our lives. Over the past seven years, she found that leaders in organisations ranging from small entrepreneurial start-ups and family-owned businesses to non-profits, civic organisations and Fortune 50 companies, are asking the same questions:
How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders? And, how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?
Dare to Lead answers these questions and gives us actionable strategies and real examples from her new research-based, courage-building programme.
Brené writes, ‘One of the most important findings of my career is that courage can be taught, developed and measured. Courage is a collection of four skill sets supported by twenty-eight behaviours. All it requires is a commitment to doing bold work, having tough conversations and showing up with our whole hearts. Easy? No. Choosing courage over comfort is not easy. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and work. It's why we're here.’
If you like Brené, you will love the book. I do like her story telling and I am all for being "awkward, brave and kind". We need more leaders who embrace this full-hearted, authentic form of leadership. If you lead... read it.. if you dare.
Brene continues to kick butt. Her books have literally transformed my relationship with my daughter, and will make my work better as Well. It's never the easy path, but She always presents us with a good one. Cannot recommend enough!
Picked this up because I've been hearing a lot about Brene Brown and the audiobook happened to be available at the library when I was looking. It's the first Brene Brown book I've read so I can't compare it to the previous ones; this one seems to be a mixture between leadership training and self help, and provides encouragement and tools for anyone in a leadership position at work to deal with or avoid shame, ego, and indifference, which are apparently areas that Brown has specialized in studying throughout her career. It made some interesting points and had some useful examples, although I was a bit put off by some of the weird corporate wording she used ("let's rumble?" no idea.) Generally some worthwhile ideas and ways of looking at things though.
Brené Brown is a researcher of shame and vulnerability, and while that might seem like an odd fit for a book about leadership in the workplace, Brown brings her usual energy and winsome earnestness to a compelling argument that vulnerability is indeed at the heart of all courageous leadership. Dare to Lead promotes strong leadership through soft hearts, which is, frankly, exactly the leadership book we need in 2020. Topics include how to be vulnerable as a leader and why you should, how to lead difficult conversations and elicit vulnerability from your team to get to the heart of issues, and how to avoid common pitfalls that make people “armor up” and fall into unhealthy patterns.
Like many, I first came to Brown’s work through her TED Talks on shame and vulnerability. If you’re wondering whether you’ll like this book, those talks are fabulous, and will let you preview some …
Brené Brown is a researcher of shame and vulnerability, and while that might seem like an odd fit for a book about leadership in the workplace, Brown brings her usual energy and winsome earnestness to a compelling argument that vulnerability is indeed at the heart of all courageous leadership. Dare to Lead promotes strong leadership through soft hearts, which is, frankly, exactly the leadership book we need in 2020. Topics include how to be vulnerable as a leader and why you should, how to lead difficult conversations and elicit vulnerability from your team to get to the heart of issues, and how to avoid common pitfalls that make people “armor up” and fall into unhealthy patterns.
Like many, I first came to Brown’s work through her TED Talks on shame and vulnerability. If you’re wondering whether you’ll like this book, those talks are fabulous, and will let you preview some of the book's underlying themes. The energy she brings to her talks practically leaps off the page with a written voice that mirrors her lecturing voice almost exactly. Brown is engaging and insightful in a way that feels earnest and open, but never feels cloying or aggressive. She’s not asking you to Lean In; she’s asking you to bring your “whole heart” to the table. And she’s got practical, data-driven reasons why you should.
The book claims to be a quick read, one which could be devoured “cover-to-cover in one flight”. And by the numbers and tone, that should be true. But I confess it took me a considerable amount of time to get through it, largely because some off-handed remark would literally completely change my worldview and I would have to put the book down to reflect on it. For example “resentment is almost always related to a lack of boundaries” was a half-sentence that was not even the main point of that sentence, much less that section, but it was a profound enough point that I had to step away. And these moments happened so frequently that the book was actually pretty slow to digest for me. So while I think this could be a breezy read, I also don’t think that’s the most product way to consume it.
The content itself is a nice balance of theoretical research and actionable takeaways. Brown has done the research, collected the data, and interpreted its results—then gone a step farther into translating those into actionable takeaways. This is Brown’s fifth book, and like most researchers, her work has built on itself cumulatively for years. Though Brown repeats extended sections from her previous books, she does a good job of highlighting how this work builds upon and extends the previous work. It didn’t feel overly repetitive for me, but I also haven’t read the entirety of her catalog.
It’s rare for me to say that a book has changed my life, but this book has shifted my approach—not just to leadership, but to communication as a whole—so fundamentally that it would be remiss of me to undersell its impact. But that said, due to the subject matter, this book rewards introspection and reflection even more than most self-help books, and you get out of it what you put in. Brown asks you to dive into uncomfortable places with yourself and with others, and while the rewards are great, the process is unapologetically brutal. But as she says, courage requires vulnerability, and “who we are is how we lead.”
