With my background in leadership education books that have “lead” or “leader” in the title tend to grab my attention. I am always looking for new information on how to be a better leader and encourage others to do the same. I found Brene Brown’s book “Dare to Lead” a year ago and have spent the last 12 months reading several other of her books as well as watching her TED talks on vulnerability and shame and her Netflix special, A Call to Courage. Something about her work speaks to my soul.
In “Dare to Lead,” I found encouragement to take the steps I need to to create the life I want while also getting tools to help me do that. One of the things I love about Brene is how she shares her information. She isn’t afraid to be vulnerable and share her challenges. She supports her ideas with research but not in a way that makes her writing hard to read. It makes it more engaging and interesting. She does a lot of qualitative research, so she has lots of stories to share that can help make her point.
But most of all, she shares her whole heart and her journey to being able to do so. In one part, she talks about being tired and overworked and having to speak to her team and how she was having a hard time letting go of her work. She needed to delegate – to lead – rather than do everything herself. She shares a lot in this book about leading in business, but she does it in a way that the solo entrepreneur or mom at home can get something out of it. One paragraph can be about her presentation to rocket scientists, and the next could be talking about her kid’s soccer coach. And it all makes sense and builds on each other.
I read her books out of order and still got a lot out of them. If you want to read them in the order in which she wrote them, here is a list:
- The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are (2010)
- Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (2015)
- Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (2017)
- Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. (2018)
- Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone (2019)
I read her most recent book a couple of months ago and was moved to tears several times. It wasn’t that the stories were sad or anything. I felt like I was making realizations about myself that opened me up and moved my paradigm. It was something I needed to read for me to move forward into the life I am building.
Have you read any of these books? I’d love to hear your thoughts on them!