Ep 9 Book Club - Dare to Lead

This is a podcast episode discussing the book "Dare to Lead" by Brené Brown. The host shares a book review written by Michaela Voss and highlights the key ideas from the book. The book emphasizes that leadership is not limited to those in management positions and encourages everyone to embrace courage and vulnerability. It discusses the importance of creating a culture of trust and support in the workplace. The book also challenges the misconception that vulnerability is a weakness and explains that it is an essential component of effective leadership. The host shares their own thoughts on the book, highlighting the concept of leadership with a human face and the importance of empathy and understanding in social work. The book is divided into four parts, with the first part focusing on vulnerability and the myths associated with it. It emphasizes that vulnerability is not about oversharing, but about being honest and authentic. Overall, the book aims to redefine leadership and promote Kia Ora, and welcome to the Bellbird Social Work Squawk podcast. My name is Rachel Bell, and I'm going to talk to you today about our latest book club book, which was Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. So we had our book club a couple of weeks ago now, so this is a little bit late, but I really wanted to share with you the review that Michaela has written about the book and talk a little bit more about Brené Brown's book Dare to Lead. Brené Brown has written a lot of very interesting books. She is a PhD social work professor, researcher, speaker, amazing lady who's done an awful lot in the world of social work and really is an inspiration in so many ways, and we chose a couple of her books to finish the year on. So we've got Dare to Lead, which was our October book club book, and really quite inspiring. So step away from our previous topics where we talked about trauma and decided to kind of have a bit of a step change with this one. So the first thing I'd like to do is read you the book review as written by Michaela Voss, who is our book club leader, if you like, and then I'm going to talk a little bit more about the book Dare to Lead, and would really encourage you to read it or have a look at the podcasts or YouTube videos or TED Talks. There's a lot of stuff out there on Brené Brown. She's pretty impressive. But let's start with Dare to Lead by Brené Brown, book review written by Michaela Voss. Our book club for October symbolises the start of a new journey within our Bellbird book club as we delve into the subject of leadership. Our selected book, Dare to Lead, is written by entrepreneur and doctor of social work Brené Brown. For those of you that know Michaela personally, you will know that she's a complete Brené Brown fangirl through and through, and we hope you are just as captivated by the teachings throughout this book. If you think after reading that the title of this book isn't for you because you aren't in management or leadership, the book will allude to the fact that you are mistaken. Dare to Lead helps us to recognise that leaders are just people who hold themselves accountable for celebrating other people's success and encouraging them to develop their own potential. Under this definition, you may begin to notice that you are in fact a leader across many different spaces within your life. A close friend of mine once told me, Michaela, you never leave a job, you leave a manager. Now this may not be entirely true for everyone, but what I am sure we can all agree on is the impact of organisational leadership. Good leadership can improve workplace satisfaction and facilitate individuals to grow to their fullest potential. Toxic leadership achieves the opposite. So how do organisations work to ensure the quality of their leadership? Brené suggests throughout Dare to Lead that the happy, healthy and productive workspaces that we all aspire to be a part of are driven by leaders who dare to be courageous. Demonstrating courage across both our personal and professional lives is at times challenging and we must dare ourselves to leave the safe parameters of our comfort zones to do so. Brené Brown throughout her work towards her doctorate studied the concept of courage in great detail. Her findings across her research are scattered throughout this book. Brené writes, quote, courage is a collection of skill sets and behaviours. All it requires is a commitment to doing bold work, having tough conversations and showing up with our whole hearts. Easy? No. Choosing courage over comfort is not easy. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and work and it's why we're here. End quote. Shying away from difficult conversations breeds cultures of fear and distrust and does not solidify integral relationships. Good leadership is brave and courageous. And alongside courage, Brené suggests that leadership is only enhanced by open vulnerability, both with ourselves and others. Brené clarifies that vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability, it is fear and insecurity. Leaders still protect and serve others, but in a way where they recognise themselves as learners and are always open to and thankful for the freedom from others. In being vulnerable, we remove our armour and control our fear, which in turn allows us to be courageous when we need to. Dare to Lead describes vulnerable leaders as those who never assume superiority and pretend to have the right answers. Instead, good vulnerable leaders remove their egos, stay curious and ask questions. Power is not a finite resource that we must hoard and keep to ourselves. Power can be infinite instead, but only when shared between people. This is how leaders empower their team and what allows innovative and creative cultures to emerge. Leadership is not a function to drive workplace productivity. Leadership is a way of being. Dare to Lead works to re-humanise the concept of leadership. And here at Bell Bird, we want to spread this revitalised definition of what leadership means and what it looks like across the social sector. At the heart of good leadership is a love and passion for those being served. We need to facilitate brave spaces where we can support one another and courageously and kindly challenge the things we need to do. This is fundamental in supporting our current and emerging leaders to grow and flourish. That was Michaela's book review, and we had a really fantastic discussion at Art Book Club about this book and the key factors of it. So I'd just like to take a little bit more time in this podcast to talk about the book, what it covers for those of you who haven't read it, and maybe for those of you even who have to unpack some of the extra bits that maybe we didn't talk about at Book Club. So Dare to Lead by Brené Brown, for me, is a book about leadership with a human face, right? It's about a concept of who we are as people, what we bring to a situation. As Michaela said in her book review, it's not about the role that we have, it's the behaviour that we enact. So it's not about the fact that my name is next to the word manager, or CEO, or whatever it might be that implies leadership, because leadership and management are two very different things. Managers manage people, and leaders lead. Brown discusses the psychology of relationships in a business environment and challenges the typical image of a boss as a cold and distant person. And we know in social work, particularly community services, that empathy, understanding are really key elements to being able to be effective in what we do. She explains that a great leader has to be vulnerable, which requires exposure to emotions and courage to live through them. So in the book Dare to Lead, essentially, it is divided into four parts, and the first is called Rumbling with Vulnerability. So this section talks about the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure, and Brown explains that vulnerable experiences are never easy, and to show up without back armour, without self-protecting mechanisms of different kinds, can be pretty scary. This is why we usually avoid vulnerability by any means necessary. It's uncomfortable, and we're full of prejudices against this feeling. There's a lot of associations for us between vulnerability meaning weakness. So Brene Brown calls these prejudices the six myths of vulnerability, and the first is that vulnerability is a weakness. Brown argues that vulnerability is a key component of effective leadership. Leaders who are willing to be vulnerable and open with their team members are more likely to build trust and foster a culture of innovation. And I think it's really interesting to reflect on how we work with people in this sector who are vulnerable. We ask people to talk about their most private moments, their history, the challenges. We seek vulnerability from the fano we serve, and yet it can be very difficult for us to be able to sit in a space where we ourselves are vulnerable. And some of that comes from this sense of feeling like we are meant to be the experts. Some of it comes from a sense of feeling like we're not held in that space of vulnerability. And that leads on to the second myth, which is I don't do vulnerability. So Brown explains that we have two options when it comes to vulnerability. We can either do vulnerability willingly, or vulnerability does us. When we're in a situation that causes us to feel vulnerable, we can either sit with the feelings and acknowledge that they're uncomfortable, but realise we're consciously making the decision to be brave and do what we've set out to do, or we can distract and numb ourselves from those feelings. So we can either be in control of that vulnerability in terms of really just sitting in that space and thinking, yeah, I feel a little bit exposed here. Yep, I feel a little bit like I'm showing myself and I'm opening myself up to whatever may come as a result of this. Or we go into that anxiety response, really, the fight or flight, and often we can freeze or we avoid. If we don't be vulnerable, then vulnerability does do us. The third myth that Brené talks about is that vulnerability is letting it all hang out, and that's not the case. Brown emphasises that vulnerability is not about oversharing or disclosing everything to everyone, but it is about being honest and authentic about our thoughts and feelings. And I think this is something that I think about a lot when people talk about honesty. We can be honest with people while still have compassion. We can be truthful while also having tact and respect and consideration for feelings. Sometimes people hide behind these kind of phrases and say, you know, and I'm just being truthful. But that doesn't mean that we have to seek to hurt people. And I think vulnerability is the same. Vulnerability is not just telling everybody everything and making people uncomfortable or oversharing or being really full on about it. Vulnerability is simply about being authentic. It's about saying, this is who I am and this is how I show up to this situation. But it doesn't mean that we have to do that in a way that's not compassionate for other people or having that empathy for understanding that other people might see things from a different point of view. The fourth myth that Brené talks about in vulnerability is that we can go it alone. Brené Brown explains that we need to be willing to ask for help and support when we need it. Vulnerability requires us to be open to the possibility of rejection or failure, but it allows us to connect with others on a deeper level. Sometimes we need to allow people the gift of giving. We do not have to do it alone. And in fact, vulnerability is saying that we are part of a community, that we need that support. And a big part of the Belvoird Co-Papa is about how do we connect with each other as a community because we know that we need to do it together. We do not have to do this alone. The fifth myth that Brené Brown talks about is I can engineer the uncertainty and discomfort out of vulnerability. So Brown argues that vulnerability is inherently uncertain and uncomfortable. We cannot engineer it out of our lives, but we can learn to embrace it and use it to our advantage. And then the sixth myth that she talks about is that trust comes before vulnerability. Brown explains that trust is actually built over time and that vulnerability is a necessary component of building trust. You don't have trust before vulnerability. Being vulnerable is how you build trust. We need to be willing to take risks and be vulnerable in order to build strong relationships with others. And in fact, I was having a conversation with someone just the other day, and she was talking about a person with whom she's had a challenging relationship and they have a lot of kind of misunderstandings. And so she actually went into a conversation with this person and just said honestly, authentically, truthfully how she was feeling and what her worries were about the relationship. And by being vulnerable, she enabled the other person in that conversation to also talk about her worries and some of the past experiences that she had had that were influencing that relationship. And they both left that conversation with a much, much higher level of trust with each other because they had enabled some vulnerability to be able to have some honest conversations. I think that's a great example of how vulnerability builds trust. You do not rely on having to have trust before you can be vulnerable, otherwise you're going to be waiting forever. So the second section of the book Dare to Lead by Brené Brown is about living into our values. This section talks about the importance of living into our values and how it can help us become better leaders. Brown explains that when we have a clear sense of our values, we are more likely to make decisions that align with those values. And values is a big part of what I talk about. Anybody who's had supervision with me will know that I often talk about values and alignment because it absolutely is around how do we know within ourselves what are the things that are really important to us? What are the things that really drive why we do this work? Because we might all have quite similar values if we're working in social work or community work, we're working with people, supporting people, there's definitely a value base there that we align with in terms of being of service and helping people and making our contribution or whatever those things might be. But how that shows up for us is very individual. What my values are that get me out of bed every day, that enable me to be able to do my job, that motivate me, are really unique to me. I'm very, very personal. And I think that when we really understand what our values are and we lean into those, we work towards being in situations, being in jobs, being within organizations, where those values are really genuinely upheld, where we feel we're able to connect to values that really resonate for us, that enable us to be able to do our job. Because our jobs are not just functional. Our jobs come from our soul, from our heart, however you want to describe that. And our values sit deep within us to be able to say, actually, this is what is important for us. And really only when we're clear about what our values are, do we make decisions that align with those values, do we work in ways that represent those values and really connect with that sense of satisfaction, I guess. Someone once told me, you know, organizational culture comes from values and behavior. So how do we know what our values are? And then how do we behave in such a way that really upholds those values, that those values are embodied, you can see them and feel them and witness them in any interaction that you have with people, and then you have a strong culture, an organizational culture. And that is leadership. The first section of the book talks about braving trust. So this section is about the importance of trust in leadership. And Brown explains, as we say, that trust is built over time, and that it requires us to be vulnerable and to take risks. Now, when Renee Brown is talking about braving trust, she uses the word braving as an acronym to describe the seven elements of trust, which are boundaries, reliability, accountability, the vault, integrity, non-judgment, and generosity. So what does she mean by those elements? So boundaries, setting boundaries is about making clear what's okay and what's not okay and why. Boundaries are not about restrictions. They are not about negativity. They're not about not being helpful. Boundaries are what keep us safe. They give us the line where we say, actually, this fits within my values, this fits within my ethics, this fits within safe practice, this fits within my job role, whatever it might be. It is the line that we say, actually, within this line, I feel comfortable, and outside of this line, actually, I don't find that acceptable. Boundaries are a really important part of any interaction that we have with people, and that might be about shared understandings with the farmer we serve. What is our job and what are we doing? What are we able to provide? What are we not able to provide? What is our role? I am your social worker. I am not your friend. We have a boundary around what we buy, what we provide, how we work. I don't work out of hours or my hours are availability of this. Whatever it might be, we put in that line in the sand that says, within this is our safety and outside of this is not. Reliability. So being reliable means doing what you say you'll do. At work, this means staying aware of your competencies and limitations so you don't overpromise and are able to deliver on commitments and balance competing priorities. We talk about being, you know, thicker and fuller. We talk about what it means to actually have integrity. Our reliability is that, you know, people just want to know that you're going to do what you say you're going to do. They want to know that you are reliable, that you're going to turn up on time, that you're going to follow through with what you promise, that you actually are somebody that has got someone's back. They want to know that if they come to you and you say you're going to do something, that you'll follow through and do it. Being accountable means owning your mistakes, apologising, making amends. Accountability is a really important part of being brave and showing leadership because we are just human. We do make mistakes. There is nobody I know who is perfect. That does not mean that if you make a mistake you're a bad person because the reality is that actually we are just human and sometimes we do things with the best of intentions and they don't work out how you want them to work out. And it's okay to say that you're sorry about that. I'm sorry if what I did didn't do what I intended it to do, if it had a negative impact. It's really important that we are accountable for our actions. B is for vault. The vault is about not sharing information or experiences that are not yours to share. It's important to know that your confidences are kept and that others are not sharing information about you that should be confidential. And I think one of the most corrosive behaviours in any environment is gossip and negativity. And I often think that in workplaces gossip is almost a currency. We sell other people's gossip as ways to ingratiate ourselves into groups. We go into environments and we say, oh, have you heard about this? And did you know that she said this? There's a difference between collecting information or being aware of things or making people aware of changes or new information. And there's another layer, which is that corrosive gossip where we are sharing things that we know we shouldn't share. If that person was sitting with you, would you be saying what you're saying? Are you talking about things that don't belong to you? Having that kind of leadership, having the conversations that are above the line, so to speak, that they are about what information is yours? What is it okay to share? Knowing that people can trust you in what they're talking about and that you're not going to pass that information on. So the vault is that kind of safe. I think of a vault as being in a bank with the iron cage and the deposit box is and it's all kind of locked up and it's safe and sound. And that is how we are able to be entrusted with other people's information because we have security around them. I is for integrity. Integrity is about choosing courage over comfort. Choosing what's right over what's fun, fast or easy and practicing your values, not just professing them. So I think about integrity as being this really kind of important aspect of our lives. If something is integral, things don't work without it. And so it is with integrity that actually, if something does not have integrity, if you think of that in a building term, if a wall does not have integrity or the foundations do not have integrity, then your house is not going to stand up and your house will fall over. And we think about the metaphor of a fairy that we have these parts of ourselves that keep us safe, keep us secure, keep us dry, keep us warm. If those parts of the fairy do not have integrity, are not secure, if the building has not been built quite to code, there's a brick missing or if there's a bit of wood that has got a bit of damp coming in, then the rock will set in and the wall becomes unstable and then that allows the rain and the wind and all the elements and the outside influences to come into our fairy and then that undermines our security and our safety of the house in which we're living in. So integrity is that really critical component of saying, can I stand firmly on this foundation? Am I able to be courageous and stand up for what's right, to call out behaviours that I don't think is acceptable, to do the right thing in the face of everybody going in the other direction. It can be really easy to go along with the group, it can be really easy to be agreeable to others and it can be really hard to be the person that's standing on your own. Non-judgmental, so being non-judgmental means that you can ask for what you need and others can ask for what they need. You can talk about how you feel without judgment. In social work I think the use of the term non-judgmental is used a lot and at times I think sometimes overused because we are asked to use our professional judgment in certain settings. But I always think that being non-judgmental is more on that personal level of acceptability, what we think is okay and not okay and the sense that just because I might not choose to live my life like that or just because I have a certain way of being does not mean that people who live differently, that there's anything wrong with that. And so actually accepting people for who they are, how they are, what they're doing and being able to be in a space where it's saying actually this is what I need right now and actually this is who I am and this is the space that I hold and I can hold that space for you too. And the last one G, generosity. So generosity is about extending the most generous interpretation to the intentions, words and actions of others. And I think this is such an interesting point when we think about our communications with people. We think about generosity, I think about compassion. Are we seeking to believe the best of someone or are we seeking to actually consider the worst? Are we being generous in our interpretations? Are we thinking that maybe even if it didn't come out right, we assume the positive intent of what has happened or has been said or has been done goes back to that kind of conversation about being accountable. You know, there are times when my intentions were absolutely right. I would never have wanted to have hurt someone or upset somebody or have done the wrong thing or make a mistake or whatever it might be. But unfortunately, that is potentially how it has ended up. So my accountability is to say that I'm sorry. But the other side of the coin of that is for the person to be generous in their assumptions of me, to know that actually it wouldn't have been my intention to have been hurtful. It would not have been my intention to have made a mistake. And that actually there's some generosity around understanding that the intention was right rather than seeking out that expectation that, oh, she's not done the right thing and, oh, she's not very good at that or, you know, she's been mean to me. So I think this is just a really important concept to think about, you know, that generosity. And I do equate it a lot with compassion. You know, we talk about boundaries. We can put boundaries in place with people, but we can have compassion to how those boundaries may impact them. We can be accountable for our mistakes, but we can also be generous in understanding that others make mistakes, too, and that there was no intent to be harmful around that mistake. I just think it's a really interesting concept to try and come from that generous space of understanding rather than that space of judgment or negativity or being that deficit focus. So the fourth part of the book is learning to rise. This section talks about the importance of learning from failure and how it can help us become better leaders. Brown explains that when we learn from our failures, we're more likely to make better decisions in the future. She emphasizes that failure is an essential part of growth and development. When we experience failure, it is important to take the time to reflect on what went wrong and what we can learn from the experience. And Brown suggests that we should be curious about our failures and use them as opportunities for growth and development. And I think it's one of those cliches, you know, when we talk about, you know, the invention of the light bulb. I've certainly heard this, you know, referred to a hundred times. Someone was talking to Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb. They said, oh, you know, you've failed 300 times. You know, you've not invented the light bulb. And he said, no, I just found 300 ways not to make a light bulb. A failure is a concept. That sense of failure is a concept. And actually, when I was doing my master's, and we were doing design thinking around how to develop prototypes to, you know, respond to a wicked problem, the term fail fast was really drilled into us. And that's really served me moving forward, because actually failure is good. Failure is learning. Fail fast, though. Learn from it. Pick yourself up. Try something else. But make it, and make a million different versions of it. We're constantly on the next iteration. Nobody has found the final result on anything. We're all learning, learning, learning as we go. So what are some of the ways that we can apply the principles of Dare to Lead in our own life? What are our takeaways from this book? How can we think about what that means for us and how we live our day-to-day life, how we practice social work, what we do in our community? And the first one is practice vulnerability. So how do we be honest and authentic about our thoughts and feelings? How do we find spaces where we're able to be vulnerable and share our experiences with others and be willing to embrace that vulnerability? That might be easier said than done. And certainly, it's not going to be something that we're all going to jump into both feet and just be able to do easily. But the more we practice it, and it does say practice vulnerability, the more we practice it, the better we will be at it. So finding those spaces for those vulnerable conversations, finding spaces to be able to share, not overshare, but to be authentically ourselves. Identify our values. So really, take some time to identify what are your core values? What is most important to you? And I think that's a really interesting exercise that actually we should be reflecting on regularly. What are the values that drive us? What really is important to us? When you really break it down to those base, base elements, what are those things that really are the reason why we get out of bed in the morning? And once we've identified our values, make sure that our actions are aligning with those values. And as we go through that process, we'll also be looking at, are we surrounding ourselves with people who have similar values? Are we working in an organization that upholds those values? Are we seeing behaviors that align with the things that are important to us in the other people that we work with? And how we embody those values. It's a very interesting process. Build some trust. So trust is built over time and requires us to be vulnerable and take risks. So be willing to take those risks. Be open to the possibility of rejection. No one likes rejection. Of course we don't like rejection, but we have to be open to that possibility because that is how we build trust. That is how we make connections. That is how we support each other and we support ourselves. Learn from failure. Failure is an essential part of growth and development. When you experience failure, take the time to reflect on what went wrong and what you can learn. I know that there are plenty of times in my practice where I have reflected and looked back and I've thought, well that didn't go how I wanted it to go. I probably won't be doing that again. Or maybe the idea was good, the execution wasn't very good. I could have done that differently. I should have said this differently or they said that and I didn't respond to it quite right. Reflection is a really, really important part of effective practice. Thinking about who am I? What am I bringing to the situation? But what did I do that maybe didn't work as well as I wanted it to? That's not about failure in that success-failure continuum where it was a complete disaster and it's the end of the world. Failure is about learning how to do something better next time. We can lead with empathy. Empathy is a critical component of effective leadership. Practicing empathy by seeing the world as others see it. Being non-judgmental. Understanding other people's feelings. Communicating your understanding of that person's feelings and being mindful. Setting boundaries. Making it clear what's okay, what's not okay. Identifying what our boundaries are and communicating them clearly with others. Boundaries are really, really important in our practice. And surrounding yourself with talent. Surround yourself with people who are better than you in different areas. Nurture their talent. Help them grow. I think it's really such an important part of growing ourselves, being leaders, being able to be successful in whatever we're doing, is surrounding ourselves with people who really have got these amazing contributions that are different to perhaps what you contribute, what I contribute. And just being able to be part of something. The sum of the whole is greater than the individual part. The opportunity is to be surrounded by people who know different to you. Who know things that are not the same. That see things in ways that are not the same. That have experiences and contributions. And that's something that's a real privilege to be able to walk alongside. To work with people who have insights and expertise that are different to your own. So surround yourself with talent. So this is just a short podcast today to talk about the book Dare to Lead. For those of you that were not able to make our book club, really do hope that you're able to come along to our next book club. It will be our Christmas book club. We're pretty excited. So you do not have to have read the book. Do come along and have a conversation. But also maybe celebrate the end of the year. It's a really great time to be able to come together. Although we appreciate that everybody's really busy. The club is about coming together and sharing space with like-minded people. You do not have to be a social worker. It's really just about how we work with people and who we are as a person. This book Dare to Lead is a perfect example of how it applies to everybody. Whether you are in leadership or management. Whether you work in social community services, health, education, business, corporate, whatever. This is how you show up in your life. Who are you as a person? And I think there are some really interesting takeaways from it. And I would love to hear other people's perspectives on the book. What did you learn? What did you take from it? I know that when we had our book club, Michaela printed out some fantastic quotes from the book and everybody was saying, I'm going to put this up on my wall. I'm going to put this on my desk. Because there are some really key parts of it that apply day to day around how we can be the best version of ourselves that we can be, knowing that this is a journey and that we are simply daring to lead. Thank you so much for your time and for listening to this podcast. Please feel free to give us any comments or feedback. And we look forward to sharing our next book club with you in December. Thank you too.