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Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture? In this new book, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love.

What Stands in the Way Becomes the Way

The author leverages an impressive amount of research data in this book, including interview data collected over the past two decades and interviews with 150 global executives on the future of leadership.
The clear message of that data is that leaders must be brave enough to challenge the status quo and transform the cultures they are appointed to lead. If they aren’t, the existing cultural norms will calcify and undermine any hope of future innovation or change.
However, defining exactly what that bravery looks like in a leader proved to be very challenging. Interviewees described courageous leadership as both a personality trait and a skill, while others offered the response of “Well, you either have it or you don’t.” Brown finally found a path to a prescriptive solution by acknowledging that courage and fear are not mutually exclusive.
In her distillation of four skill sets of daring leadership, her core tenet is that bravery often masks an equal amount of fear, and it’s only when we embrace that fear that we can be truly transformative.

The Four Skill Sets of Daring Leadership

1. Rumbling with Vulnerability. Brown uses the term “rumble” to imply a commitment to “listening with the same passion with which we want to be heard.” Being brave means staying both fearless and vulnerable and sticking with the process of problem identification and solution, no matter how messy it gets.
2. Living into Our Values. How you conduct yourself in the role and the values you demonstrate in that behavior will speak volumes about your courage as a leader. Leading with compassion and patience will produce a more transformative outcome than will simply leveraging the authority granted by your title.
3. Braving Trust. While Brown focuses on the courage and bravery needed to be a transformative leader, the element of trust is critical to that transformation. The people you lead will need to feel “safe, seen, heard and respected,” so that they can trust your courage and follow your direction.
4. Learning to Rise. Brown uses the analogy of teaching first-time skydivers the right way to land before they’ve ever jumped out of a plane. Courageous leadership should be taught in the same manner. Failure is inevitable, and even the most courageous leaders should be prepared to handle that. Otherwise, the first failure will undermine that bravery and reassert the resignation that the current cultural norms are here to stay.