Do You Dare to Lead?
One of the most surprising things that leaders today have in common is that they have entered into the role of leader unknowingly. Chances are, if you are an entrepreneur reading this, this is your story too. One day you are focused on a task at hand, and the next thing you know, you woke up and found yourself responsible for an entire team, with your former tasks at their hands. Instead of being responsible for just your role, you are now responsible for the whole payroll.
If this accidental leader is you, it’s likely these two things are also true:
1. You’ve found out that leadership is harder than you thought.
2. You want to be a better leader.
As you might have already said to yourself, the struggle is real. And it is. But I’ve come to find out that the solution is real, too. Quite literally real. The solution is vulnerability.
Let me be vulnerable. Many of us pick up our first ideas on how to lead through osmosis from the leaders around us. Throughout my early career, I encountered several bosses who were commanding-control leaders. These leaders used shame as their go-to management strategy, and sure, lots of things got done. However, in looking back, the environment was always toxic, with irreparable personnel damages killing most future growth.
With this example as my foundational workplace experience, it’s a battle not to lead this way. In times of stress and chaos, control has been my default: if I can just be short with others, all the things will get done. But like any leader on the job, it doesn’t take long to encounter the reality that people are not machines and human burnout is real.
According to five-time #1 New York Times bestselling author and research professor Dr. Brené Brown in her latest book Dare to Lead, becoming a better leader has absolutely nothing to do with the armor of command and control. Brené has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, and most recently completed a seven-year study on courageous leadership. Her research reveals that the ideal leader is someone who cultivates a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation. She concludes we need braver leaders and more courageous cultures. And here’s the best part: she has found that courage is teachable, measurable and observable — and that we all have the capacity to learn it.
I’ve read hundreds of leadership books. No book has arrested my attention like Dr. Brené Brown most recent book, Dare to Lead. Years ago, my wife who is a social worker by training, introduced me to her work. I’ve read several of her books and heard her speak, and I always really enjoy her. Then last summer I downloaded Dare to Lead on Audible and headed to the gym. As I was on the elliptical machine at the Y, I kept hitting bookmark. So much so, that I fell off the machine. How’s that for encountering literal vulnerability?
As Dare to Lead makes clear, shame, vulnerability, and courage are not words often used in leadership, but they are some of the most important understandings for effective leaders today. It’s so important that we dispel the leadership myth that leading is having the loudest voice in the room or being the strongest person or making the quickest decision. Instead, we need to champion the empathetic leader by understanding that empathy is a sign of courage, not weakness.
One of the biggest breakthroughs in my leadership journey has been unlearning the command-control way and understanding that when it comes to delivering results or caring well for your team, every leader should and can value both. Being a better leader is not about looking like you have it all figured out. It’s not about winning or losing at all. It’s about courage.
“Everyone wants to be brave. Very few of us want to feel vulnerable. There is no courage without uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Brave is vulnerable. Embrace the suck.” — Dr. Brené Brown
Do you dare to lead? As a leader, you have the opportunity to write a courageous story. As I’ve found, becoming a courageous leader takes work, vulnerability, and difficult conversations. Nothing good comes easy and passivity has a short shelf life — so now is the time to do the hard work.
Reading Dare to Lead and catching Brené’s Netflix special, The Call To Courage, are both great first steps, but there’s more. Like anything in life, there is power to dedicating space and time to an area that you wish to grow in. If you and your team are looking to create space and time to do the work of figuring out what it means to really show up and lead wholeheartedly, receive this as your invitation to join other leaders for Dare to Lead™, a two-day empirically based courage-building program. This program is based on the most significant findings from Brené’s latest research, which shows that courage is a collection of four skill sets that are teachable, measurable, and observable. Over 16 hours, we’ll work through these skills, core values, and behaviors you need to lead courageously, while exploring how to grow trust and empathy on your team. We’ll also spend some time looking at cognition, or the thinking part of the brain, and how this connects to our behavior and the effect it has on those we lead.
When you are 80 and look back at your life and the people entrusted to your care, what do you want to be true of your impact? Do you want people to say, yeah, you got a lot done, but you were a jerk, or do you want people to say, wow, you were a courageous leader who was both effective and caring, calling those around you to lead with integrity and their whole heart?
In my everyday work as a People, Team & Organizational Strategist, I am convinced there is no perfect leader, however I am certain that all leaders, good or bad, make a lasting impact. Leading well is important. Having hard conversations is important. Understanding core values is important. Understanding that we are all going to screw up and need to have conversations that ask for forgiveness is important. Trying better next time is important. Vulnerability is important. Having courage is important. Whatever you do, dare to lead. It’s really important.
Next step
Consider making an investment in your team to become a more courageous, vulnerable and values driven leader. Our Dare to Lead workshop is great for teams of any size and makes great content for team retreats or on-site workshops. Learn more here.