Quick Look to Leadership in the light of Dare to Lead Book
Just finished Brene Brown's book Dare to Lead and wanted to share some insights I gained from it. I have been following her for years now. I love her studies around vulnerability, fear and shame. Feelings we do not talk about, definitely not in the workplace. I am grateful that she starts these difficult but important conversations.
Without these feelings, we are denying who we are as human beings and we cover up with many games we play at work. We act like there is no fear, there is no room to fail, there is no way to expose real emotions and like we never feel shame. Since these are so much part of who we are as human beings, this denial shows up as inauthenticity at work.
I remember the times I need to play the game. Nobody teaches you the rules of the game either. You realize over time that some topics or some emotions you share in your personal life do not belong in the workplace, where you spend most of your waking hours. They expect you to build walls between work and personal life. They want you to pretend some parts of you do not exist. If you are like me, you realize soon enough you cannot play the game. That is not easy either. One of our strongest needs as human beings, belonging, needs you to be part of the game while you know that will mean losing your soul. So we have to be real at work too by sharing our feelings.
One of the benefits of talking about these feelings at work is to recognize we are not alone. Even the tough CEOs who feel like they need to be strong at all times will know others at their position feel vulnerable, have shame or fear too. The hardest experience for people