Dare to Lead summary

The second key idea in this Blink is that courageous leaders carve out time to talk from the heart by giving and soliciting honest feedback. 

In the early days of building her company, Brené’s employees asked if they could sit down with her. They had concerns, and they wanted to share them with her. And so, being a courageous leader, Brené agreed. She sat down with her employees and was stunned to learn that they were struggling with the consequences of her unrealistic time management. Her team pointed out that she had an unhealthy habit of setting impossible deadlines, which they struggled to meet. 

One great way to create a culture of vulnerability and curiosity within meetings is to use permission slips. These slips give you and your team the opportunity to do a self check-in before a meeting begins – a chance to identify your fears, hopes, and intentions. 

Offer each member of your team a Post-it note, and invite them to list one emotion or action they’ll allow themselves to fulfill over the course of the meeting. You can use permission slips in private or as a group. They’re a valuable way of setting the tone for the rest of the meeting. 

If you lead an organization, you’ll know that organizations are made up of people. And people are constantly seeking patterns and stories to help them make sense of their world. 

Your colleagues and teammates probably have a set of stories they refer back to in order to make sense of their work and their place within the team. The thing about stories is that the brain enjoys a neat ending. We want villains and heroes as well as a clear story arc. To put it bluntly, we want clarity. 

Your values are like your North Star – they should direct every decision you make and every action you implement. 

When we find ourselves facedown in the dirt, it's our values that motivate us to get back up again and keep daring to give it our all. The most courageous leaders that Brené Brown came across during her research were those who really knew what their values were – and who used these values to guide them through periods of darkness. 

From an early age, we become skilled at shielding ourselves from vulnerable feelings like disappointment, hurt, and diminishment. We build walls around our behaviors, emotions, and thoughts and use them to protect ourselves from the big, bad world.

But to live and lead with courage, we need to, as Brené Brown says, “rumble” with vulnerability. One of the best ways to begin this journey is by recognizing the blockers preventing us from being more open. A key blocker here is perfectionism.