User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Brene’s gone corporate. The 99% of us who latched onto her as a hardworking mom and smart researcher who thought hard and fought her way through to some amazing, amazingly put insights... well, in my opinion, that lady is gone. In her place is a motivational speaker who is most interested in selling herself as a guru to the 1%, or the slightly larger percentage of those who can afford to expense her to the company account. She’s just rehashing her old stuff and twisting it’s wording slightly to apply to the boardroom- and she’s not hiding it, either, I’ll give her that. The phrase, “As I already told you in Daring Greatly/The Gifts of Imperfection/Rising Strong...” pops up pretty frequently. Her forward literally states her aim for this book is that it be just as long as a flight from NY to LA. The book is just riddled with stories about the fancy people she’s given talks to, I assume to build up her cred with the C-levels reading this (a term I now know bc she repeated it so often). The book is filled with cheery posters and slogans you can print out and hang on your office wall, and despite her insistence that “teachers are some of our most important leaders,” at the start, we somehow never left the conference room in the half of the book I forced myself through. I saw this pattern start to happen in Braving the Wilderness, which was deeply meh but sort of had a logical progression of previous thought there- at least a tiny attempt at one. Not so here.
And that’s fine, she’s a CEO now herself, and that’s her truth now. And no doubt we do need people to help leaders with emotional skills they were never taught.
But it isn’t my truth. And it’s sucks to fall out of love with another author.
Blergh.
Rating: really liked it
I thought it would be a good idea to read more books about business and leadership and decided that Brene Brown would be an ok place to start. It was but there were too many self-help vibes in this book so only 3 stars.
There were some interesting and useful ideas about vulnerability and courage. I realised some of the mistakes I am doing and that putting up an armor does not help my development. There were also some interesting leadership advice and I think I learned something from this book. I particularly enjoyed the chapter about shame, a feeling which is embedded in our psyche since we are kids. I can’t even count how many times we are told not do something because it is shameful. However, the way the book was written made me roll my eyes many times. I really hate the language used by most self-help books and this was no exception. If I had read “circle back” or “rumble with vulnerability” one more time I would have thrown this book into a fire.
Rating: really liked it
It’s Brene Brown for your corporate retreat! I was turned off by the management speech, which I thought she said in the beginning she wouldn’t do (the temptation is great). I was also annoyed at the commodification of her vulnerability insights into cute little worlds. “We’re going to rumble with this.” My SFD is... etc. Its sort of what happens to good insights—once they go thru the corporate retreat circus, they come out as weird nouns that can also be verbs and lose their original meaning.
Having said that, it’s useful insights as always. Just maybe read the first few books as all her ideas can be applied to the workplace without becoming cute phrases and procedures and meetings.
Rating: really liked it
So, I really appreciate Brené Brown. I love her books. I love her cussing (which she does in her talks more than her books) and, most of all, I love her staggering vulnerability and empathy.
Dare To Lead continues her conquest of shame, dysfunction, ego, hate, indifference, and everything else that tries to dehumanize and destroy us every day but now, she focuses her energy on vulnerability in the workplace--a place where most of us spend a significant amount of our lives navigating.
How do we become courageous, bold, creative, caring leaders at work? What does it mean for us to begin a process of healing from past hurts, growing through our insecurities and shortcomings, and stepping into the arena, as Brown puts it, every single day?
Dare to Lead addresses an epidemic need for greater trust, authenticity, empathy, and care within our organizations and places of work. Wherever we work, inevitably we will experience miscommunication, misalignment, mismanagement, conflict, unethical decisions, criticisms, pressures to excel, temptations to hide your weaknesses and failures, and so much more. If you look at the stats, most of us have difficulty with a supervisor or co-worker.
Worse, we as a culture are becoming increasingly insensitive, outraged, and out of touch to our very own humanity. In the age of social media, algorithms, AI learning, and splintered narratives, we have forgotten that we are “people, people, people.” We are not just our tweets, we are not just our pain, we are not just our jobs or positions, but we are thoroughly and complexly human. Dare to Lead addresses these issues and helps pave a better path for all of us.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book! It is relevant, powerful, smooth to read, and deeply real.
Rating: really liked it
This was mostly a wrong turn in my “learn how to be a supervisor in the middle of a pandemic” quest. It seems to have received more attention from fans of the author’s other work than people looking for business books, and so perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s much more a self-help book than a management book. Mostly it’s peddling the author’s particular version of emotional authenticity and connectedness. I don’t know that there’s anything bad about her vision per se, but I found the book off-putting: the peculiar phrasing she uses in her workplace (“let’s rumble about this,” “that’s outside of my integrity,” and so on), the self-help-y unspoken assumption that seems to saturate its pages that those who don’t see the light of her vision will bumble around blindly leading terrible lives. Admittedly, I don’t think much of self-help books. They’re quick and easy reads, as this is, but they rub me the wrong way.
And unfortunately, for all the author touts her Ph.D. and calls herself a researcher, this is very much self-help rather than pop psych. Typically, a pop psych book will discuss studies and their methodologies and results in an accessible way for a general audience. This author claims to have done a bunch of research, but her methodology is never discussed beyond vague references to interviewing people. And she never cites a single statistic, instead presenting the One True Way to Be Empathetic, for instance. Somehow I’m pretty sure no psychological research shows 100% unanimity on anything, unless it’s total softball questions like “is murder generally wrong?” At what point does “I talked to a bunch of people about this, and here’s the general consensus” cross the line from anecdote to science? I don’t know, but I’m not convinced this work has done so.
That said, certainly there’s plenty of common sense advice here, like “be clear about what specifically you’re asking people to do” and “try to be nonjudgmental if you want people to feel safe talking to you.” I think the book is a little overly padded with the author quoting long excerpts of people (particularly famous people) praising her work, and it’s probably most useful if you are the head of an organization looking to transform a workplace culture. It kind of annoyed me, but then it’s not my type of thing to begin with.
EDIT: I finally found the management book I was looking for in Good Boss, Bad Boss. If you're looking for a compilation of actual research studies plus smart insights on how to be a great boss and navigate real (not idealized) workplace culture, I recommend that one instead!
Rating: really liked it
Another meaningful and inspiring work from Brené Brown! A friend recommended this book and I'm glad I took the time to read it. I think it will be especially beneficial to anyone in a leadership position who wants to improve relationships. Highly recommended.
Meaningful Passage
I didn't set out to study shame; I wanted to understand connection and empathy. But if you don't understand how shame can unravel connection in a split second, you don't really get connection. I didn't set out to study vulnerability; it just happens to be the big barrier to almost everything we want from our lives, especially courage. As Marcus Aurelius taught us, "What stands in the way becomes the way."
Here are the ten behaviors and cultural issues that leaders identified as getting in our way in organizations across the world:
1. 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 "nice and polite" that's leveraged as an excuse to avoid tough conversations. Whatever the reason, there was saturation across the data that the consequence is a lack of clarity, diminishing trust and engagement, and an increase in problematic behavior, including passive-aggressive behavior, talking behind people's backs, pervasive back-channel communication (or "the meeting after the meeting"), gossip, and the "dirty yes" (when I say yes to your face and then no behind your back).
2. Rather than spending a reasonable amount of time proactively acknowledging and addressing the fears and feelings that show up during change and upheaval, we spend an unreasonable amount of time managing problematic behaviors.
3. Diminishing trust caused by a lack of connection and empathy.
4. Not enough people taking smart risks or creating and sharing bold ideas to meet changing demands and the insatiable need for innovation. When people are afraid of being put down or ridiculed for trying something and failing, or even for putting forward a radical new idea, the best you can expect is status quo and groupthink.
5. We get stuck and defined by setbacks, disappointments, and failures, so instead of spending resources on cleanup to ensure that consumers, stakeholders, or internal processes are made whole, we are spending too much time and energy reassuring team members who are questioning their contribution and value.
6. Too much shame and blame, not enough accountability and learning.
7. People are opting out of vital conversations about diversity and inclusivity because they fear looking wrong, saying something wrong, or being wrong. Choosing our own comfort over hard conversations is the epitome of privilege, and it corrodes trust and moves us away from meaningful and lasting change.
8. When something goes wrong, individuals and teams are rushing into ineffective or unsustainable solutions rather than staying with problem identification and solving. When we fix the wrong thing for the wrong reason, the same problems continue to surface. It's costly and demoralizing.
9. Organizational values are gauzy and assessed in terms of aspirations rather than actual behaviors that can be taught, measured and evaluated.
10. Perfectionism and fear are keeping people from learning and growing.
Rating: really liked it
Overall: If you have not read something by Brene Brown, then you absolutely need to!! This is a great one to start with and the information presented can be applied to all areas of life. Amazing messages, great writing style, versatile applications and this book will make you a better person 10/10
Summary: A compilation of thoughts and research on what makes an effective leader. She started by asking what people should do differently to lead during our modern times, when “we’re faced with seemingly intractable challenges and an insatiable demand for innovation.” Truly daring leaders, she explains, are prepared to be vulnerable and listen without interrupting. They have empathy, connecting to emotions that underpin an experience, not just to the experience itself. They have self-awareness and self-love, because who we are is how we lead.”
The Good: Brene Brown is brilliant. Her writing is no-nonsense, direct, and very applicable in every area of life. I started this book with the intent of learning ways to be a better leader a work but the material can be applied everywhere; as a significant other, as a parent, friend, at work, etc. Her voice and insight is amazing, inspiring, and I learn something new every time I read one of her books.
The Bad: How do we get more people in this world to read material like this??
Favorite Quotes:
“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.”
“People are opting out of vital conversations about diversity and inclusivity because they fear looking wrong, saying something wrong, or being wrong. Choosing our own comfort over hard conversations is the epitome of privilege, and it corrodes trust and moves us away from meaningful and lasting change.”
“The only thing I know for sure after all of this research is that if you’re going to dare greatly, you’re going to get you’re a** kicked at some point. If you choose courage, you will absolutely know failure, disappointment, setback, even heartbreak. That’s why we call it courage. That’s why it’s so rare.”
“We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.”
Rating: really liked it
I love Brene Brown, her first few books helped me a lot. Maybe I changed or she ran out of interesting new research to share, but I felt that this book
didn’t give me too much. It felt like a reiteration of her previous findings but the examples are more relevant for managers.
Rating: really liked it
I got quite a few good tips from this read, while others were just too time consuming. Lol. All in all, very helpful advice and strategies to apply towards my job and some even to my everyday personal life.
Rating: really liked it
I started following Brene Brown’s work since a couple of years and read ‘Braving the Wilderness’ last year. I find Brene’s writings on vulnerability to be exceptional and the concept of ‘True Belonging’ she explained in ‘Braving the Wilderness’ to be very thought provoking. I had very high expectations going into this book and those expectations were partly met.
‘Dare to Lead’ explores the characteristics of brave leaders who are not afraid to demonstrate genuineness, dialogue on differences, and exhibit empathy. Vulnerability, courage, fear, shame, empathy and many other aspects are explored in depth. I especially liked how ‘shame’ is explored as a theme.
While there is a good amount of interesting material in the book, it does tend to be very theoretical & dry in many parts. The book vaguely refers to research all the time without enough personal / other people’s experiences which would have made it easier reading. Nevertheless, I do recommend the book as it has a lot of good behavioral insights which leaders should certainly know about and practice.
My rating: 3.5 / 5.
Rating: really liked it
Imagine I told my 64-year-old boss, "Let's rumble about that."
He'd laugh my face off and for good reason.
I did enjoy components of this book. Brené Brown frequently uses personal experiences to underlie a principle and her own vulnerability really helps set a tone. Unfortunately, it is not a tone I particularly found helpful.
While the book maintains the veneer of a well-researched, academic writing, it really reads more like a pop-psychology book more intent on providing buzz words than practical advice. As I read, I felt less and less drawn in by the practical tips and more and more skeptical about the overall value of what I was reading.
It isn't that there isn't good content here. In a shorter book, perhaps, or different format, much of this might come together. Perhaps even in some of her earlier books (reviewers seem more fond of those.) But this particular book didn't provide anything mind-blowing and, in fact, rather turned me off with several cringe-worthy catch-phrases.
Rating: really liked it
I couldn't even finish this thing, I had to quit halfway through because I was afraid that my eyes would get stuck from all the rolling. I found something on nearly every page that made me want to barf. The whole thing is a jargon-fest of cringeworthy TED Talk-esque aphorisms that sound profound but don't actually mean anything at all. Scattered among the nonsense new-age turns of phrase were cloying "inspirational" stories of how great leaders showed true vulnerability or whatever. The author constantly quotes herself, her own career, and books; a lot of the book felt like she was just regurgitating what she has previously written. She feels like the personification of a LinkedIn account--fake, sanitized, corporate, and pushy.
Rating: really liked it
One of my favorite things about Brené Brown is her delivery. Her writing and conversational style is so easy to relate to and feels genuine. The skills and techniques reviewed in this book will help you formulate what kind of leader you want to be, giving you the tools to become a successful one. Although there is NO way I could finish this book on a “short flight” - it’s worth taking your time, writing notes, and comparing your own examples to.
Rating: really liked it
I love Brené Brown! I didn’t love this book though. It felt like a repackaging of her previous works.
Rating: really liked it
Read over a long period as book club at work. Great real life examples and simple, easy to follow solutions. Recommend for all professional leaders!
