Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Dare to Lead, authored by Brené Brown, explains why leadership is not only about titles, status, and wielding power. The book points out that a leader is one who takes the responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the intent and courage to develop that potential. The author, a renowned TED speaker, has written this book after extensive interactions with 150 global C-suite executives.
A daring leadership, according to the author, requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. Some of Brown’s observations are very interesting. She says that courage and vulnerability always go together, adding truly daring leaders are always prepared to be vulnerable and listen without interrupting.
The book further says that clarity about values is essential for good leadership. Values are human ideals like courage, freedom, justice, kindness, discipline, family, and honesty. If you really want your values to guide you well, focus on only two of them as it will give you a specific ideal to turn to when the going gets tough.
The author has coined an acronym BRAVING that compiles seven behaviours - Boundary setting, Reliability, Accountability, Vault-closing, Integrity, Non-judgement and Generosity- and she says that whenever you’re in a difficult situation that requires communication to solve, you can dig into these behaviours and find the one that’ll help get things back on track.
Best quote from the book: “If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves including their unarmored, whole hearts - so that we can innovate, solve problems, and serve people - we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected.