Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. | Brené Brown

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Brené Brown has taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong, and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers, and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead.

Look for Brené Brown’s new podcast, Dare to Lead, as well as her ongoing podcast Unlocking Us!

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG

Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential.

When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work.

But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start.

Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. She found that leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies all ask the same question: 

How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture? 

In this new book, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love.

Brown writes, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.”

Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“With Dare to Lead, Brené brings decades of research to bear in a practical and insightful guide to courageous leadership. This book is a road map for anyone who wants to lead mindfully, live bravely, and dare to lead.”—Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook, founder, LeanIn.Org and OptionB.Org

“Brené visited Pixar to talk with our filmmakers. Her message was important, as movies are best when they come from a place of vulnerability, when the people who make them encounter setbacks and are forced to overcome them, when they are willing to have their asses handed to them. It is easy to sit back and talk about the values of a safe and meaningful culture, but extraordinarily difficult to pull it off. You don’t achieve good culture without constant attention, without an environment of safety, courage, and vulnerability. These are hard skills, but they are teachable skills. Start with this book.”—Ed Catmull, president, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios

“Whether you’re leading a movement or a start-up, if you’re trying to change an organizational culture or the world, Dare to Lead will challenge everything you think you know about brave leadership and give you honest, straightforward, actionable tools for choosing courage over comfort.”—Tarana Burke, senior director, Girls for Gender Equity, founder, the Me Too movement

“We asked Brené to bring her work on courage and vulnerability to our Air Force base. This is a tough audience, many of them with significant combat experience. Within five minutes, you could have heard a pin drop. Brené cuts through the noise and speaks to what makes us human and makes the mission happen. Dare to Lead is about real leadership: tenacious, from the heart, and full of grit.”—Brigadier General Brook J. Leonard, United States Air Force

“Brené is Google Empathy Lab’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. She has profoundly inspired our product leaders to design in and embrace vulnerability, rather than engineer it out. It’s a critical and transformative act to bring your alive, messy, wholehearted human self to work every day. Dare to Lead is the skillful and empowering Jedi training we have all been waiting for.”—Danielle Krettek, founder, Google Empathy Lab

“Applying the principles from Dare to Lead to my work as a principal has transformed the way I show up with parents, students, and colleagues, and how I lead. Brené’s words, stories, and examples connect with our hearts and minds, and her actionable approach gives us the tools to be braver with our lives and our work.”—Kwabena Mensah, PhD, assistant superintendent, Fort Bend ISD, Principal of the Year, Katy ISD and Texas Alliance of Black School Educators

“Brené truly gives it all away in Dare to Lead. Courage is a set of teachable skills, and she teaches us exactly how to build those muscles with research, stories, examples, and new language. The future belongs to brave leaders, and she’s written the ultimate playbook for daring leadership.”—Scott Harrison, founder and CEO, charity: water