I reread Dare to Lead by Brené Brown this weekend in preparation to facilitate a couple of book club discussions on it for my leadership development program at work. I first read the book when it came out, then again for a leadership team book club shortly after, and you may know I keep up with Brené’s work (from new books to her weekly podcasts to quoting her on a weekly basis . . . she’s one of my favorite teachers and leaders).
There’s so much to take away from the book, it’s a must-read for any leader, but here’s one exercise I like that anyone can do: living into our values.
I highly recommend you read the book or listen to the Unlocking Us podcast where it walks through it in detail, with lots of context. There’s a PDF download at that link too.
But here’s the short of it:
- Identify your two core values. Yes, there can only be two. The ones I come back to are “Courage” and “Connection”.
- Identify the behaviors associated with each value. What does it look like when you’re showing up in that value? For example, for me, I’m living into my value of courage at work when I speak up to disagree with my boss or when I admit that I don’t understand something.
- Identify slippery behaviors that we can fall into when we’re outside of our values. For example, I’m outside my value of courage when I protect my own comfort over having a hard conversation.
- Lastly, think about a time when you were fully living into that value.
The worksheet takes it a few questions further but this is where I like to start and what I have my leadership class think through during our discussion.
With Love,
Natalie