Learning to Rise – Dare to Lead
I’ve been spending time with the concept of conscious leadership. I’ve recently revisited Brene Brown’s Dare To Lead book. She defines a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential. To do this one needs to be aware, present and committed. In other words, conscious. I’ll be unpacking Brene’s concepts in this series. Today, we’ll end this series by covering learning to rise, which is the fourth skill set to daring (and conscious) leadership.
Overview:
Brene outlines daring (conscious) leadership as a collection of four skill sets that are 100% teachable, observable, and measurable. The foundational skill set is “rumbling with vulnerability.” The other three skill sets: Living into Our Values, Braving Trust, and Learning to Rise.
Resilience:
Learning to rise is about acquiring resilience skills. Resilience means different things to different people. Merriam-Webster’s second definition captures more of the essence as applied to life and career. It’s an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. The capacity to recover quickly from perceived setbacks. In summary, it’s learning how to ‘fall’ and embrace failure. And remember there is NO failure only feedback.
The big misses:
First, If we don’t have the skills to dust ourselves off and get back up, we may not risk falling. Secondly, teaching resilience without rumbling with vulnerability and discussing the emotions around falling, is also a big miss in corporation-land. If we are brave enough, then, sure enough, we are definitely going to fall. Brown’s research shows that those that have the highest levels of resilience can get back up after a fall and be even more courageous and tenacious as a result.
“When we have the courage to walk into our story and own it, we get to write the ending. And when we don’t own our stories of failure, setbacks and hurt – they own us.” – Brown
The three steps to Learning to Rise:
The Reckoning: To me, the reckoning is being in the ‘grip’ of a situation where emotions are running high. Physiology is taking over and thinking, logic and behavior are not present. The key to the reckoning is being aware, present, conscious that something has got a hold of you. Next, it’s time to get curious about it. “I am______________(in a lot of pain, feeling really vulnerable, my stomach is in knots, feeling like I want to punch someone)”, as an example. This step can be hard because most tend to blame others or outside circumstances.
The Rumble: Rumbling is stepping into the story, owning it and taking it to the mat! Rumbling typically includes the story we make up absent of data. Consequently, it’s usually based in fears and insecurities. These evolve into conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories can often contain confabulations. Brown defines this as a lie told honestly. We replace missing information with something false that we believe to be true. This shows up at work when we share what we believe is factual information, but it’s really our opinion.
Brown encourages us to write our SFD (shitty first draft), by starting what I call, a pattern interrupt. It’s a simple way to notice your story while being in your story. To put rising skills into practice start with: “The story I’m telling myself…” or “The story I make up…” Write it down! There are a whole host of follow-up questions that Brown outlines as the Story Rumble process. The most challenging question is “What more do I need to learn and understand about myself?”
The Revolution: Claiming authorship of our own stories and lives is the revolution, according to Brown. It’s taking off the armor and rumbling with vulnerability, living into our values, braving trust with open hearts and learning to rise!
I dare you to lead! We only have a finite amount of time on this planet, and you can choose how to spend that time. Anoush Shafique, Director of the London School of Economics shares “In the past jobs were about muscles, now they are about brains, but in the future, they will be about the heart.”
Are you ready?: Press HERE for Success
I wish you much success in your career quest. Yours in balance, learning, growth and harmony. – Melissa DeLuca, CEO
