Dare to Lead

Kick-Off

Clear is Kind. Unclear is Unkind.

These words are likely the most repeated and most shared part of this book by me and everyone else. People who I coach, mentor, or lead probably get tired of me saying them. This concept aligns well with lessons from Radical Candor and helps to frame conversations which need to be tough and clear. One of the worst things you can do in a hard conversation is leave the other person unclear on the message or next steps. Things are already hard, emotions are high, and if you don't spend that relationship capital to deliver the full message you've wasted an opportunity.

This book is powerful and hits with some tough advice about how the right way to lead isn't the tough - measured - commanding presence that many of us have tried to model. Instead she shows a way that uses your heart, courage, bravery, and vulnerability. I had gotten to some of this on my own as I'm very much the type of person who wears my emotions on my sleeve. I keep my camera on at work 100% of the time because I want people to know what I'm thinking and feeling. If you've read Gino's book Traction then I'm a visionary not an integrator.

For me and all the teams and people I lead my number one driving factor for all my decisions is to maintain psychological safety. In meetings I tend to mention it often enough people roll their eyes. I recommend both Culture Code for the "why" and Fearless Organization for the "how" on it. This book perfectly dovetails with those two. As a trifecta:

• Culture Code explains why psychological safety is important.
• Fearless Organization explains how to deploy and operate it in your team and environment.
• Dare to Lead explains how to show up correctly and be the type of daring leader that a psychologically safe team needs to do their best work.

Rumbling

Brené uses the phrase Rumbling to explain how you have to really dig in to tough conversations. I'll let her define it (as a side note, I'll never be the kind of writer who can pull off a sentence this long):

Rumbling: A rumble is a discussion, conversation, or meeting defined by a commitment to lean into vulnerability, to stay curious and generous, to stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving, to take a break and circle back when necessary, to be fearless in owning our parts, and, as psychologist Harriet Lerner teaches, to listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard.

I like this definition because it really helps to lock-in what rumbling is and the power that it has when things need to be worked through. It's not always easy to drop into this level of vulnerability and honesty. I've found good preparation to be key. Walking in to a hard conversation with some thoughts and examples floating around your head generally makes things go poorly. If you can prepare ahead of time, have examples, and really try to stay in "teacher" mode where you will deal out some discipline and tough thoughts, but always from a frame of helping and growing that person... it tends to go much more smoothly. Those are the conversations where I get the follow-up a day or two later with the person thanking me for the feedback and guidance.

Armored vs. Daring

Finally, I want to toss out a picture here that comes from Brené's website about the concept of Armored vs. Daring leadership. I feel like over the years I could have added many more items to these two lists both from myself and other managers and leaders I've worked with. Staying on the Daring side is a choice and not always an easy choice. I feel it's a choice to show up, stay vulnerable, and make sure you don't simply give up - shut down - and resort to fear/anger/frustration/using power.

Wrap-Up

Overall, this is a fantastic book. The notes above are only a small part of what you'll find and I can't recommend it highly enough. Some of you reading this may know I see a therapist on a normal basis. I've been going monthly for the past 7ish years and plan to continue. At this point it's like a mental oil-change. Sometimes we just end up chatting, and other times we end up with hard conversations about my patterns, family things, or work things. Early on my therapist had said that therapy is primarily designed to give you tools, which at the time seemed silly. Over the years I've realized it has done exactly that. Reading this book after I've been given those tools really let me understand and use some of the recommendations in this book. Also, in full Dunning-Kruger glory, I'm now able to realize a little more about how much further I have to go on this journey.

Whether you've been at this hard work for awhile, or you're just starting I think this is a solid first book to get going. Happy Rumbling!

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