PDF Summary:Dare to Lead, by Brené Brown

Vulnerability is all too often engineered out of today’s work cultures, in a bid to make employees more efficient and less susceptible to emotions—but brave leaders who have the courage to allow vulnerability are essential to thriving work cultures. Dare to Lead breaks down the four courage-building skills that make up brave leadership, so that you can create an organization that takes risk, uncertainty, and failure in stride. You’ll learn how to lead your team in engaging with vulnerability, acting with integrity, having more productive and honest conversations, and moving on quickly from failure—skills that will allow your work culture to meet today’s ever-increasing innovative and creative demands.

(continued)...

(Shortform note: Brown’s recommendations for practicing empathy reflects the three types of empathy described by psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman. Being nonjudgmental indicates cognitive empathy—your ability to understand others’ perspectives. Understanding others’ emotions is the definition of emotional empathy. And asking about others’ feelings indicates compassionate empathy—the actions you take based on the empathy that you feel towards others. Even though compassionate empathy usually is an attempt to make things better, it still counts as empathy because you’re acting based on your understanding of others’ emotions and not disregarding them totally.)

Skill #2: Choose and Practice Your Values

You now know why it’s important to face vulnerability—but how do you actually develop the courage to do so? Brown contends that this develops partly from the second skill of courageous leadership: choosing and practicing your values. In this section, we’ll first discuss the importance of leading with grounded confidence and why practicing your values is essential to that. Then, we’ll discuss how to choose and practice these values in your organization—especially when giving feedback.

Leading With Grounded Confidence: Practicing Values, Curiosity, and Self-Awareness

Brown contends that, when faced with vulnerable moments or tough decisions, brave leaders depend on “grounded confidence” for the courage to face their vulnerability instead of hiding behind defensive behaviors. Brown defines “grounded confidence” as confidence rooted in strong values, self-awareness, and curiosity; it’s based on a proven ability to face your vulnerability rather than a contention that you probably could.

(Shortform note: Brown’s description of “grounded confidence” is nearly identical to the definition of confidence described in The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. They argue that confidence is a strong belief that you can perform a skill because you’ve already proven that you can do it—although they also add that this belief is so strong that it drives you to perform the skill in question.)

Brown argues that grounded confidence has two components. The first is to approach your work with curiosity; in other words, wonder what might happen instead of panicking about an uncertain outcome. With this approach, you’ll take the time to examine problems and possible solutions, instead of racing for an answer and missing valuable learning opportunities.

(Shortform note: In Essentialism, author Greg McKeown suggests that in order to rationally evaluate all your options, you must have the following: a separate space to explore your options, time to think about why your decision matters, imagination to increase the number of creative connections you might make, a good night’s sleep so that you can perform at your optimum level, and clear selective criteria so you know how to decide which option is best.)

The second component of grounded confidence, according to Brown, is continually practicing your values and self-awareness. She argues that if you act in accordance with your values in everyday situations, you will also do so in moments of vulnerability because it’s become second nature. Brown admits that these moments of vulnerability will never be easy, but with well-practiced values—and the self-awareness to recognize and refute the temptation to resort to defensive behaviors—you’ll have the confidence to face these moments, knowing fully that you’ll make it to the other side.

(Shortform note: Practicing the second component of grounded confidence may also improve your self-esteem, according to self-esteem expert Nathaniel Branden. In The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, he argues that you can improve your self-esteem by recognizing and acting on every reality that affects your life and by regularly acting in accordance with your values—both of which you do each time you recognize that you’re tempted to resort to defensive behaviors and choose to live by your values instead.)

How to Practice Your Values

Now that you know why you should practice your values, we’ll discuss how to practice them.

The first step, according to Brown, is to have your organization choose no more than two core values that employees can depend on to guide tough decisions. If you have too many values, Brown explains, they become meaningless and too nebulous to be actionable. Imagine that you say, “We care about quality, collaboration, sustainability, balance, and knowledge.” These are all worthy values, but there are so many, so it’s hard to know which one should be driving behaviors and major decisions.

The second step, according to Brown, is to translate these values into behaviors that can be taught, practiced, and evaluated. These behaviors will provide clear guidelines of how you expect your team members—and yourself—to work together, make decisions, and show up to their work. For example, say that your company decides on balance and knowledge as their two core values. The balance value might translate into a “no work emails on the weekend” policy, and the knowledge value might translate to an expectation that everyone comes to the weekly marketing meeting with a question or a new tool or skill to share.

Other Ways to Choose and Practice Your Values

Like Brown, Traction author Gino Wickman also argues that having core values will help guide your company through difficult situations. However, he presents different ways of choosing and practicing them.

Notably, Wickman argues that you should have three to seven core values—not just two—and recommends a four-step process for choosing them:

1. Think of three people in your company who stand out as star performers.

2. List the characteristics these people embody.

3. Combine similar values and narrow the list.

4. Pick out the values that seem most important, reflect on them for a month, then finalize them.

What do you do once you’ve chosen these values? Instead of translating them into behavioral guidelines, as Brown suggests, Wickman recommends communicating your values to your employees by presenting them with stories and examples of people in your company applying that value. Additionally, Wickman suggests hiring people who’ve already exhibited those values because they’ll likely fit in better with your company culture. To do so, Wickman recommends explaining your values to candidates in the interview process and asking them how they’ve applied them in their previous work.

How Strong Values Support the Feedback Process

According to Brown, practicing your values is especially important when giving and receiving feedback—a vulnerable process that often prompts defensive behaviors. When giving feedback, focusing on your values can help you approach the conversation in alignment with them. For example, having the core value of teamwork might push you to work together with your feedback recipient to come up with solutions.

Brown adds that when receiving feedback, focusing on your values can help you channel your emotions productively, toward insight and learning, rather than defensively. You can do this by entering the conversation with a value-supporting mantra or behavior, such as “Paying attention will make me a better teammate” (teamwork), or “I will ask questions and fully understand” (curiosity).

(Shortform note: In Thanks for the Feedback, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen present an alternative way to ensure that you receive and respond to feedback productively: Understand your triggers, or the knee-jerk responses that cause you to dismiss or get angry about feedback. Understanding these responses, they explain, will help you gain control over them. For example, you may negatively respond to feedback because your colleague—and not your boss—is giving it to you, even though she’s making a valid point. But if you understand that feedback from this specific colleague triggers you, you can separate your frustrations about who is giving you the feedback from your receptivity to the content of the feedback.)

Skill #3: Build Trust and Connection

Brown contends that the third skill of courageous leadership is building trust and connection. In this section, we'll first discuss why trust matters and why people shy away from discussing it. Then, we’ll discuss how you can increase trust within your organization.

Brown explains that trust is essential to organizations: It allows people to feel comfortable trying new ideas and relying on others. However, Brown argues that we often don’t trust our colleagues—but we don’t talk about this to avoid offending our colleagues by calling them untrustworthy.

(Shortform note: Other researchers agree with Brown that trust is essential to organizations. Specifically, they contend that you must have two types of trust: competence trust, or a belief that your colleagues will do good work, and interpersonal trust, or a belief that others are doing their best. But what if a colleague doesn’t extend these types of trust to you? Instead of becoming offended, remember that trust is not an either/or proposition. In Crucial Conversations, the authors argue that trust can evolve and is specific to the situation—so just because someone distrusts you in some circumstance doesn’t mean they distrust you in all circumstances.)

How to Talk About Trust

To make the conversation about trust less emotional, Brown recommends that you reframe the discussion: Talk about trustworthy behaviors instead of the general sense of trust you have in someone. By doing so, you break down the nebulous concept of trust into actionable behaviors that you—and your team—can work on to improve trust. For example, if you say, “I don’t trust you with this project,” your team member may grow angry. But if you say, “I want to discuss some reliability issues when it comes to meeting deadlines,” your team member understands exactly why you have lower trust in them and how they might improve.

What, exactly, are trustworthy behaviors? Brown explains that these are behaviors you perform in everyday situations—not grand gestures. Namely, behaving in a trustworthy manner means that you set and respect limits, stick to your commitments, take responsibility for your mistakes, keep confidences, and generally assume that others are trying their best.

Why Trustworthy Behaviors Work

If you can build trust by practicing specific behaviors, you may assume that trust is something that behaves logically: For example, if a company presents data that proves that they’re doing something right, you automatically trust them. However, in Start With Why, Sinek explains that trust is a gut feeling that can’t be rationalized because it’s located in the limbic brain—our emotional center. This explains why we trust certain companies even when things go wrong but mistrust other companies that do everything right. But in this case, why would practicing trustworthy behaviors help build trust?

As Brown notes, you can earn people’s trust by showing them that you share their values and beliefs. So it’s possible that the trustworthy behaviors Brown recommends build trust because they’re all behaviors that demonstrate your values. Setting and respecting limits implies that you value boundaries, sticking to your commitments and keeping confidences imply that you value integrity, taking responsibility implies that you value accountability, and assuming the best in others implies optimism.

Brown emphasizes that assuming that others are trying their best is particularly important, as it can reveal how your leadership might be causing untrustworthy behaviors. As Brown notes, if someone falls short on a task, it’s easy to assume the worst—like that they don’t care. But if you assume that they were trying their best, it prompts you to examine how you may have failed as a leader: For example, perhaps you gave unclear guidelines. When you change your actions according to what you learn—like by providing clearer guidelines—it rebuilds trust on both ends: You are able to restore your trust in your team member’s abilities, while they learn that they can trust you not to give them tasks that they can’t accomplish.

(Shortform note: What should you do if someone falls short on a task, and it turns out that it is their responsibility—not yours? In Crucial Conversations, the authors recommend that you try to rebuild trust incrementally: Start by trying to trust them in the moment, allowing yourself not to trust them in all circumstances. Say you’ve lost trust in your colleague because he missed an important deadline. You should start trying to rebuild trust by trusting that he’s working when he says he is; it’s OK to not trust him to turn in his next project on time.)

Skill #4: Develop Failure Resilience

Brown contends that the fourth skill of courageous leadership is developing your team’s failure resilience—the ability to recover and move on quickly after something goes wrong. This is an essential skill for leaders to teach because people are more likely to take risks and try new ideas if they’re confident that they can recover from any setback.

Brown recommends that you teach failure resilience from the very beginning of the onboarding process, in order to normalize failure and demonstrate that team members will be supported, not shamed, when (not if) it happens. Otherwise, you’ll waste time fixing the defensive behaviors that arise from the fear of failure, like the perfectionism we discussed previously.

How to Make Employees Feel Safe From the Beginning

In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle also contends that to make an employee safe enough to fail, you should start early in her journey with the company because the sooner she feels safe with your company, the sooner she can behave productively—instead of engaging in unproductive, defensive behaviors.

Coyle defines the behaviors and actions that create a supportive environment in the office as “belonging cues” and suggests three things to do on an employee’s first day. First, show interest in her excitement; you’ll show her that you value her as an individual and help her feel connected to others. Second, show her how she might be promoted so that she can see what kind of future she has with the organization. Third, express that you value openness, transparency, and feedback to signal that she can speak up without fear of being fired.

According to Brown, failure resilience has two main components: recognizing your emotional response to failure and working through the story you create about failure.

Step 1: Recognize Your Emotional Response

Brown explains that while you don’t need to know exactly what you’re feeling in response to a failure or setback, you need to acknowledge that your emotions were triggered in some way. By following this step, you go from feeling to thinking—instead of leaping directly to problematic defensive behavior.

Step 2: Work Through Your Initial Story

Brown explains that when you encounter failure, you naturally create a story to explain what happened and why. But since this “initial story” is based on incomplete information and your own insecurities, it tends to include connections that may or may not be true.

To work through the story productively, you need to question its different components to separate facts from assumptions and insecurities. Ask yourself: What do I actually know about the situation? What am I assuming about the other people in the situation? What feelings are driving my reaction?

Then, talk through your story aloud with the people involved. The phrase, “The story I'm telling myself…” is especially useful in these conversations—it lets you express your feelings and invite the other person to share their side of the story. Approaching the story this way either shows you the illogical leaps your story made or opens up an honest conversation about her thoughts.

For example, say you present an idea in a meeting and your colleague Anne glances at another colleague before rejecting your idea. Your initial story might be, “Anne looked at Cheryl before saying no. That must mean they’ve been talking about me and think my ideas are stupid and not worth their time.” But by reviewing this story, you realize that you only know that Anne looked at Cheryl and she rejected your idea.

Once you understand these feelings, you speak to Anne, saying, “When I brought up that idea, you looked at Cheryl before you said no. The story I’m telling myself is that you two have been discussing my ideas outside the meeting and don’t think they’re worth your time.” Then, Anne might simply say, “No, I was looking at the clock behind Cheryl because I had a deadline that day that I was behind on,” which would bring you great relief.

How to Talk About Failure: What Other Authors Say

The Crucial Conversations authors would likely characterize any conversation about failure as a “crucial conversation,” which they define as a discussion characterized by high stakes, differing opinions, and strong emotions. Their process for having such a discussion is similar to Brown’s, but they have additional suggestions that may help you work through failure even more productively.

Like Brown, the authors contend that in order to prevent yourself from engaging in problematic defensive behaviors, you must acknowledge that your emotions were triggered and re-examine the initial story that you created. They add that to do so effectively, you must understand that your emotions are not created by others; rather you create your emotions. They also provide more actionable strategies for separating facts from assumptions in your initial story: For example, they recommend watching for emotionally charged terms—for example, “she scowled at me” might sound like a fact, but “scowled” is a word that expresses judgment.

Then they, like Brown, recommend speaking with the people involved, and they present an acronym for helping you do so: STATE. Share your facts, starting with the least controversial. Tell your story, explaining what you’re beginning to conclude. Ask for others’ paths, encouraging others to tell their facts and stories. Talk tentatively, stating your story as opinion, not fact. Encourage testing; in other words, proactively seek opposing views to test your theory against additional information.

Question Initial Stories in Turbulent Times

Brown adds that it’s especially important to lead your team in questioning and talking through their initial stories in times of change or uncertainty in your organization, when rumors are prevalent. People tend to believe their stories and retell them as truth, breeding insecurity and anxiety. Just think how easy it is for “There will probably be massive layoffs at the end of the summer, I can feel it” to become twisted into, “There will be massive layoffs in August.”

Brown explains that you can stop these stories by offering as much information about the situation as possible and speaking to your team with transparency to separate fact from imagination—before rumors abound. Addressing your team’s stories now will take some extra time, but it’ll also save you from wasting your time on fixing defensive behaviors down the road.

How to Talk to Your Teams About Their Initial Stories When Working Remotely

If you’re working in a virtual or hybrid team during a time of uncertainty in your organization, don’t try to discuss your team members’ initial stories via email or chat; talk to them live. Experts argue that easily accessible leaders are key to promoting transparency on (partly) remote teams: Your in-person and remote employees should both have equal opportunity to ask you questions, and making people email you adds a barrier to entry that’s not present when you’re talking in person. Additionally, having this conversation via video chat improves the chances that you’ll notice that something is wrong even if your team member isn’t explicit about her concerns: The vast majority of our communication comes from factors other than the words we speak, like our gestures.