As I reflect on capacity for leadership and resilience in the context of significant changes, part of where I need to do personal and professional growth work is in the area of vulnerability.
I have been inspired recently seeing leaders supporting Defence members by (appropriately) sharing some of their own similar challenges to what the person is going through. This can help the struggling person frame and navigate their own issue, as well as be encouraged they are not alone and that they are understood and need feel no shame. I have also been heartened to see members who have demonstrated a character slip to receive mentoring support and realignment, with care not to impose shame. This requires tough conversations and calls for a gift of leadership that is both emotionally intelligent and non-anxious in its posture. It is the kind of leadership that Brené Brown champions in Dare to Lead and other books such as The Gifts of Imperfection, Braving the Wilderness, Daring Greatly and Rising Strong.
Brené Brown has been researching vulnerability, shame and resilience for two decades. Her TED talk on “The power of vulnerability” has 37 million views and is one of the five most watched. Dare to Lead draws on her consulting and personal experience, teaching and evaluating the “Brave Leaders” course and interviewing 150 global C-level leaders to unpack the ingredients of brave leadership and courageous organizations.
US Military are among the organisations she has worked with. She writes it was especially illuminating for her theories on vulnerability when she asked several hundred American Special Forces soldiers:
“Vulnerability is the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Can you give me a single example of courage that you’ve witnessed in another solider or experienced in your own life that did not require experiencing vulnerability?” (p.23)
The group was silent in response, till one soldier spoke up admitting courage always requires managing massive vulnerability. That underlined for me the importance of Brown’s ideas for soldiers in the Australian Army, valuing as we do Courage alongside of Service, Respect, Integrity and Excellence.
Brown defines leadership as “anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.” She encourages her readers to approach leadership with courage and whole-heartedness, rather than functioning out of hurt and pain.
She unpacks four skill-sets of courageous leadership. The first skill, explored in over half the book, is “rumbling with vulnerability”. This is about tough conversations in which we stay vulnerable, generous and curious. Brown illustrates a diverse set of tools for meetings and performance evaluation: asking people to “say more”, communicating and recording decisions clearly (because “clear is kind, unclear is unkind”), being ready to pause and circle back on conversations later, avoiding cynicism and sarcasm as control techniques, catching people doing things right, and supporting rest and recovery rather than workaholic competitiveness. These are as important in Defence work contexts as business and not-for-profits.
The most important underlying vulnerability-related skill I appreciated was being aware of the armour that drives dysfunctional relationships and teamwork. It is important to name the shame that drives us – and recognise if and when we get caught in a shame s#!t-storm. For example, Brown helped me realise how my narcissism as “shame-based fear of being ordinary” and associated striving for success and recognition can drive my workaholism, previous job applications and even striving for athletic achievement. Some of this derives from childhood scars of being picked last for sport as well as family-of-origin messages about the importance of appearance, work and self-achievement. I am learning the grace of “enough” that overrides the shame of “never good enough” and “unwanted identity”. This is a journey Brown models with her stories and gives courage to face. Without facing these kinds of issues, it is difficult to maintain a healthy basis for resilience and leadership.
The second skill-set is “Living into Our Values”. Brown counsels limiting ourselves to adopt two key values. For example, of the hundreds of potential values, Brown’s chapter helped me identify that “Collaboration” and “Future generations” are most important to me. Identifying key values suggests behaviours and offers a grid for deciding what to pursue and what to say “no” to. Brown says, “If I miss the boat, it wasn’t my boat.” Brown helped me realise that too often I approach life by pursuing and collecting lots of different experiences, rather than going deep and thoughtful with what is most important to me.
It is most important to me to collaborate and work together towards common goals. Moreover, collaboration does not have to mean being a constant fixer with others but practicing the empathy of being with others in their darkness. And it is most important to me to be part of supporting and equipping future generations to make a difference, to change the world, to be navigate the emerging global and local issues. This is a large part of why giving my best efforts to leadership development and pastoral support of learners and students, and those teaching them. ADF has our five values that ADF members are invited to adopt and they capture my imagination and shape my approach to work and training. But the exercise of identifying my central values, and helping others identify what is most important to them, is also invaluable.
As an aside, Brown’s website offers a Dare to Lead Hub with exercise sheets for Operationalizing Your Valuesas well as The Daring Leadership Assessment, Read Along Videos and other resources for going deeper with the book’s themes.
The third skill set is “Braving Trust”. Trust is one of the most essential elements in turning around struggling organizations. It takes years for leaders to build trust but trust can be quickly lost. This is something we are very aware of in Defence. Brown teaches the BRAVING inventory as a summary of trust-building behaviour:
- Boundaries (respecting one another’s and asking when unsure about expectations)
- Reliability (doing what you say and not overpromising)
- Accountability (including owning and apologizing for mistakes
- Vault (not sharing confidential information)
- Integrity (choosing what is right over what is easy, fast or fun, and practicing not just professing values)
- Nonjudgment (when asking or giving help), and
- Generosity (assuming the best of others).
You can learn this from watching healthy business teams or from watching movies about groups of people who hold together against otherwise insurmountable odds, as well as knowing it from first-hand experience in Command teams or task groups – trust in one another makes effective teams.
The final skill is “Learning to Rise”. Like parachutists who practice landing and getting up before jumping out of a plane, we need preparation for hard landings. Brown offers practical advice including tactical breathing and articulating the stories we tell ourselves or make up (the shitty first drafts or SFDs) about bad situations.
What I most appreciated about the book was its invitation to wholeness and growth. It invites me towards courageous, wholehearted leadership, and to leading out of self-awareness rather than hurt and fear. Brown concludes that one of the key things her research tells her is to courageously pursue that which gives joy and meaning:
“We fail the minute we let someone else define success for us. Like many of you, I spent too many years taking on projects and even positions, just to prove I could do it. I was driven by a definition of success that didn’t reflect who I am, what I want, or what brings me joy. It was simply accomplish-acquire-collapse-repeat. There was very little joy, very little meaning, and tons of exhaustion and resentment” (pp.271-72).
Dare to Lead is full of examples from military leadership, corporate life, family relationships and friendships. It reminded me of my need for others in my family and work teams. I need relationship and mutual support both with chaplaincy colleagues and members of the teams in the unit I serve. It also offers valuable skills for seeing and bringing out the best in family, friends and colleagues. Dare to Lead is a helpful handbook for anyone wanting to grow in self-awareness and capacity for effective management and healthy team building. It offers valuable lessons for prioritising people, fostering healthy organisational culture and identifying important areas for personal as well as professional development.
Notes:
A previous version of this review was originally published in Journal of Religious Leadership (2019).
The book’s publisher details are London: Vermilion, 2018.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Australian Army, the Department of Defence or the Australian Government.
About the Reviewer
Darren Cronshaw is a Chaplain who has served at Army School of Transport, Puckapunyal, 1st Recruit Training Battalion, Kapooka and Defence Force School of Signals. He is also Professor of Practical and Intercultural Theology with the Australian College of Ministries (Sydney College of Divinity). His hobby is pushing the boundaries of resilience in Ironman triathlons.