Brené Brown
Brené Brown on the Obstacle to Courageous Leadership—and the Hack that Changed Her Life
The number one obstacle to courageous leadership is not what Brené Brown thought it was when she began studying the topic seven years ago.
“I thought it was fear,” Brown said at the 2019 Watermark Conference for Women. But “it’s not fear that gets in the way of us being brave. It’s armor. It’s what we do when we are afraid. We self-protect, close our hearts completely off and engage in behaviors that move us away from courage: perfectionism, cynicism, having to be the knower instead of the learner.”
As a result, we struggle with having hard conversations. In fact, some leaders say that their cultures are “too nice” to have hard conversations, explaining that they just talk about people instead. And that, quipped Brown, doesn’t seem nice or kind. Read More
Brené Brown on Courage, Grounded Confidence and How Her New Book Has Changed Her Approach to Leading and Work
Even for Brené Brown, renowned author, researcher and expert on being brave, leading doesn’t come easy. “Being a founder and CEO is one of the most challenging roles in my life when it comes to showing up as my best self, leaning into tough conversations and making hard calls—all in the service of others,” says Brown, who heads Brené Brown Education and Research Group as well as holds an endowed chair at the University of Houston. “Seriously, it’s up there with parenting and partnering.”
With her new book that’s out this month, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts, Brown provides actionable strategies for the workplace, based on seven years of studying top leaders and teams around the world. She’ll be speaking at the 2019 Watermark Conference for Women in February. In the meantime, she took time out of her busy schedule to answer our questions. Read More
Brené Brown on Owning Our Collective Past
“We have the courage to do this. We have to do it together. And it’s going to be imperfect. But if we don’t do it, one of our worst stories in history will continue to own us, and it will not go away. Because pain will not be denied.”
—Brené Brown, keynote speaker at the 2017 PA Conference for Women, urging people on Facebook to start talking honestly about the past so that it, as she says, “stops defining us”
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Read more from the September 2017 newsletter