Developing Brave Leaders
and Courageous Cultures

The goal of Dare to Lead™ is to share everything we’ve learned about “taking off the armor” and showing up as leaders in a skills-based and actionable playbook. Here are a few of the big ideas that emerged from the research:

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• The foundational skill set of courage building is “rumbling with vulnerability”. Once we have built these rumbling skills, we can move onto the other three skill sets: Living into Our Values, BRAVING Trust and Learning to Rise. Our ability to be daring leaders will never be greater than our capacity for vulnerability.

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• The greatest barrier to courageous leadership is not fear – it’s how we respond to our fear. Our armor – the thoughts, emotions and behaviors that we use to protect ourselves and our hearts when we aren't willing and able to rumble with vulnerability – move us out of alignment with our values, corrode trust with our colleagues, teams and loved ones and prevent us from being our most courageous selves.

 

• To scale daring leadership and build courage in leaders, teams and organizations, we have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations and whole hearts are the expectation, and armor is not necessary or rewarded. We have to be vigilant about creating a culture where people feel safe, heard, seen, understood, respected and where they can give and receive without judgment.

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The skill sets that make up courage are not new; they've been aspirational leadership skills for as long as there have been leaders.

We just haven’t had the courage for real talk about courage.