General Session featuring Brené Brown

Dare to Lead
Leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies, are asking the same question: "How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?”  Based on 20 years of research, including the past seven studying leadership, Brené Brown found the answer: Daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100% teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. In this session, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to explore:

• The ten cultural barriers to courageous leadership.
• The four skill sets that underpin courage:
  1. Rumbling with Vulnerability
  2. Living into Our Values
  3. Braving Trust
  4. Learning to Rise
• The difference between armored leadership and daring leadership.
• Why curiosity and grounded confidence are at the heart of brave work and tough conversations.

Brown writes, “The skill sets that make up courage are not new; they’ve been aspirational leadership skills for as long as there have been lead­ers. Yet we haven’t made great progress in developing these skills in leaders, because we don’t dig into the humanity of this work—it’s too messy. It’s much easier to talk about what we want and need than it is to talk about the fears, feelings, and scarcity that get in the way of achieving all of it. Basically, and perhaps ironically, we don’t have the courage for real talk about courage. But it’s time. And if you want to call these “soft skills” after you’ve tried putting them into practice—go for it. I dare you.”