Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

THE MOMENT THE universe put the Roosevelt quote in front of me, three lessons came into sharp focus. The first one is what I call “the physics of vulnerability.” It’s pretty simple: If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall. Daring is not saying “I’m willing to risk failure.” Daring is saying “I know I will eventually fail, and I’m still al

Here are the ten behaviors and cultural issues that leaders identified as getting in our way in organizations across the world: We avoid tough conversations, including giving honest, productive feedback. Some leaders attributed this to a lack of courage, others to a lack of skills, and, shockingly, more than half talked about a cultural norm of “ni

It turns out that trust is in fact earned in the smallest of moments. It is earned not through heroic deeds, or even highly visible actions, but through paying attention, listening, and gestures of genuine care and connection.

Turn & Learn. We all get Post-it notes and write down how long we think a project is going to take, and if we’re looking at several projects that we need to prioritize, we’ll write the projects in priority order. Once everyone has written down an estimate or priority ranking in private, we count to three and show our answers. This practice cont

I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.

1. You can’t get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability. Embrace the suck. At the heart of daring leadership is a deeply human truth that is rarely acknowledged, especially at work: Courage and fear are not mutually exclusive.

wholeheartedness. In The Gifts of Imperfection, I define wholeheartedness as “engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness.3 It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect

Our research led to a very clear, very hopeful finding: Courage is a collection of four skill sets that can be taught, observed, and measured. The four skill sets are: Rumbling with Vulnerability Living into Our Values Braving Trust Learning to Rise

The courage to be vulnerable is not about winning or losing, it’s about the courage to show up when you can’t predict or control the outcome.