Dare to Lead

In boardrooms across the globe, a familiar scene plays out daily. Leaders armed with impressive credentials and strategic frameworks find themselves paralyzed when faced with difficult conversations, innovation challenges, or moments that demand genuine vulnerability. Despite having all the technical skills and business acumen, they struggle to create the psychological safety and trust necessary for teams to thrive in our rapidly changing world.

The gap between what we know about effective leadership and what we actually practice has never been wider. Research reveals that while organizations desperately need braver leaders and more courageous cultures, most leaders lack the specific skills to show up authentically in moments of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. This disconnect costs organizations billions in lost productivity, engagement, and innovation. The solution lies not in another management theory, but in developing the courage to be vulnerable, live our values, build trust, and learn from failure.

Vulnerability is not weakness, it's the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change. At its core, vulnerability is the emotion we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. It's that feeling when you're about to have a tough conversation with your team, when you're launching a new product without knowing if it will succeed, or when you have to admit you don't have all the answers.

Consider the story of Stefan Larsson, who took over as CEO of Old Navy when the brand had been struggling for years. Instead of coming in with all the answers and projecting invincibility, Stefan made a counterintuitive choice. He moved his leadership team into a transparent office with glass walls and unlocked doors, physically demonstrating openness. More importantly, he instituted weekly learning sessions where outcomes were no longer judged as good or bad, but simply as data points for continuous improvement. This created what he called a "failure-proof" way of working.

The transformation required Stefan and his team to practice specific vulnerability skills. They had to get comfortable with not knowing, with making mistakes publicly, and with asking for help. They established psychological safety by removing the fear of being wrong and replacing it with curiosity about what could be learned. When team members shared initiatives that hadn't worked as planned, instead of blame or shame, they asked "What did we set out to do, what happened, what did we learn, and how fast can we improve?"

This approach led to twelve consecutive quarters of growth and added one billion dollars in sales over three years. The key wasn't eliminating vulnerability, but learning to rumble with it skillfully. When we armor up against vulnerability, we also armor up against the very experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our work and lives.

Values aren't just feel-good words hanging on office walls, they're the principles that guide our behavior when the stakes are high and the path forward is unclear. Living into our values means we do more than profess them, we practice them through specific, observable behaviors that can be taught, measured, and held accountable.

Dr. Sanée Bell, a middle school principal in Texas, discovered the power of operationalizing values when she committed to addressing academic disparities in her school. Instead of avoiding the difficult conversations about equity that many educational leaders sidestep, she grounded herself in her core values of courage and service. She began sharing her own story of growing up in situational poverty, which gave others permission to be vulnerable about their experiences and challenges.

To translate values into action, Sanée developed structured protocols for hard conversations and invested time in building trust before tackling controversial topics. She stopped checking her personal life at the door and instead used her authentic story to connect with students, staff, and community members. When faced with resistance or uncomfortable discussions about race and inequality, she would ask herself whether she was choosing courage over comfort, and what the right thing to do was, not the easy thing.

The practical work of living into values requires identifying specific behaviors that support your core principles and recognizing the "slippery behaviors" that pull you away from them. It means having integrity partners who can help you stay aligned when pressure mounts, and creating systems that reward values-based decision making even when it's difficult or costly.

Trust is not built through grand gestures or dramatic declarations, it's earned in small moments through consistent behaviors over time. The anatomy of trust can be broken down into seven specific elements that spell out BRAVING: Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Nonjudgment, and Generosity.

Brent Ladd, a professional staff member at Purdue University, experienced a trust transformation when he realized his independent work style was actually signaling to colleagues that he didn't trust them. As an introvert with a strong work ethic, Brent had always prided himself on not needing help from others. However, through self-reflection, he recognized that his reluctance to ask for assistance or engage personally with his team was creating distance rather than demonstrating strength.

Brent began deliberately investing in small daily connections with his colleagues, asking about their lives and genuinely listening to their responses. More significantly, he confronted a fear he had carried for years about not having completed his Ph.D. This insecurity had prevented him from submitting his research work to conferences because he felt he didn't belong in academic circles. By owning his story and choosing vulnerability over self-protection, he was able to present his research and gain recognition from the scientific community.

Building trust requires understanding that each element of BRAVING represents specific behaviors that can be developed and practiced. Reliability means doing what you say you'll do while being honest about your limitations. The Vault means keeping confidences and not sharing information that isn't yours to share. Generosity involves extending the most charitable interpretation possible to others' intentions, words, and actions, while maintaining appropriate boundaries.

The ability to get back up after failure, disappointment, or setbacks is not innate, it's a learnable skill set that can be developed through practice. The process involves three key phases: the Reckoning, where we recognize we're emotionally hooked by something; the Rumble, where we get curious about our stories and challenge our assumptions; and the Revolution, where we transform our experience into wisdom and growth.

Consider a personal story that illustrates this process. After an overwhelming period of launching a new company while simultaneously going on a book tour, a leader found herself completely stretched beyond capacity. When her husband made a simple comment about there being no lunch meat in the house, she immediately created a story that he was criticizing her inability to manage both work and home responsibilities. Her first reaction was anger and defensiveness, but she had learned to recognize when she was emotionally triggered.

Instead of attacking, she used the powerful phrase "the story I'm telling myself is..." to share her interpretation of his comment. This simple tool transformed what could have been a destructive argument into a moment of connection and support. Her husband was able to clarify that he was simply hungry and looking forward to making a sandwich, not making any judgment about her performance as a partner.

The key learning happened in what's called the "delta," the gap between our initial story and the reality we discover through curiosity and conversation. Most of our first reactions are driven by fear, insecurity, and incomplete information. By learning to capture these "shitty first drafts" of our stories and reality-check them through vulnerable conversation, we can transform potential conflicts into opportunities for deeper understanding and connection.

The revolution occurs when we integrate these learnings into how we show up in the world, becoming more skilled at catching ourselves in story-making and more courageous about having the conversations that matter.

The research reveals a fundamental truth about leadership in our complex, rapidly changing world: we need leaders who are willing to choose courage over comfort, vulnerability over invulnerability, and connection over control. As the data shows, "Courage is a collection of four skill sets that can be taught, observed, and measured," which means that anyone can learn to lead with greater bravery and authenticity.

The path forward requires abandoning the myth that great leaders have all the answers and embracing the reality that the best leaders are those who create spaces for others to contribute their gifts, learn from failures, and grow through challenges. This means developing the emotional literacy to recognize when we're triggered, the curiosity to question our assumptions, and the vulnerability to ask for help when we need it. Start today by identifying one conversation you've been avoiding, write down the story you're telling yourself about why it's difficult, then reach out to that person and begin with these powerful words: "I'd like to talk with you about something, and I want to start by sharing the story I'm making up about our situation."