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

Brown (Braving the Wilderness) left a Fortune 10 company in the early 1990s to pursue a career in social work. From systems change management and organizational environmental scanning, she soon found meaning in the study of courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. The result is this intriguing new approach to leadership development that combines courage, connection, and meaning. Her key challenge is to explain how to cultivate braver, more daring leaders and how to grow the value of courage in any organization. Her findings are based on 20 years of interviews with leaders in a diverse range of organizations. Brown defines a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding potential in people and processes and who has the courage to develop that potential. Empathy in leadership requires appreciating someone else's perspective and feelings, even when that person directly challenges you. A daring leader manages by leading from the heart and is not threatened by showing their imperfections. This refreshing research on leadership from a specialist in the helping profession reaches many fields and provides actionable strategies and real-life examples from a variety of leadership situations. The work makes a timely arrival as today, far too many people in leadership roles pretend to have the answers, see power as something to hoard, avoid difficulties, lie indiscriminately and pathologically, and shy away from any degree of vulnerability or accountability. Brown's work manages to add significant new ideas to this saturated genre and arrives at a time when our society has seemingly chosen not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders or support the teaching and molding of courage and commitment to do bold work and put our whole hearts into our endeavors.