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Is courage a trait or a skill? Should a leader ever say, “I don’t know”? What’s a sure sign that you’re not reaching your potential as a leader?
Brené Brown—a popular public speaker, bestselling author, and professional social worker—longs to see people lead wholeheartedly. She discusses how leaders can practice courage, build trust, and model vulnerability.
Continue reading for several Brené Brown leadership quotes that capture the essence of her message.
Brené Brown Leadership Quotes
We’ve organized 10 Brené Brown leadership quotes into three categories: courage, trust, and vulnerability. We’ve added some context and explanation to help you understand where Brown is coming from.
Leadership and Courage
“Just under half of the leaders we interviewed initially talked about courage as a personality trait, not a skill. They typically approached the question about specific skills with a ‘Well, you either have it or you don’t’ answer.”
“The true underlying obstacle to brave leadership is how we respond to our fear.”
“Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behavior. What this means is that we must find the courage to get curious and possibly surface emotions and emotional experiences that people can’t articulate or that might be happening outside their awareness. If we find ourselves addressing the same problematic behaviors over and over, we may need to dig deeper to the thinking and feeling driving those behaviors.”
“Acknowledge and reward great questions and instances of ‘I don’t know, but I’d like to find out’ as daring leadership behaviors. The big shift here is from wanting to ‘be right’ to wanting to ‘get it right.’”
These Brené Brown leadership quotes are from Dare to Lead. In this book, she argues that a leader must practice and hone four skills to lead courageously—facing vulnerability, choosing and practicing values, building trust, and developing failure resilience. She contends that the effective use of these skills can help your team overcome difficult situations and encourage creativity and innovation.
Brown contends that, when faced with vulnerable moments or tough decisions, brave leaders depend on “grounded confidence” for the courage to face their vulnerability instead of hiding behind defensive behaviors. Brown defines “grounded confidence” as confidence rooted in strong values, self-awareness, and curiosity; it’s based on a proven ability to face your vulnerability rather than a contention that you probably could.
Brown adds that when receiving feedback, focusing on your values can help you channel your emotions productively, toward insight and learning, rather than defensively. You can do this by entering the conversation with a value-supporting mantra or behavior, such as “Paying attention will make me a better teammate” (teamwork), or “I will ask questions and fully understand” (curiosity).
Leadership and Trust
“Going back to that filter of susceptibility to shame—when it comes to work, we’re afraid of being judged for a lack of knowledge or lack of understanding. We hate asking for help. But that’s where it gets wild. We asked a thousand leaders to list marble earning behaviors—what do your team members do that earns your trust? The most common answer: asking for help. When it comes to people who do not habitually ask for help, the leaders we polled explained that they would not delegate important work to them because the leaders did not trust that they would raise their hands and ask for help. Mind. Blown.”
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