We’re going to build a purpose-based culture. We’re going to find alignment on vision and values. We’re going to turn them into tangible behaviours to which we can hold ourselves and each other to account. We’re going to get super-skilled at talking about hard things. We’re going to respect boundaries and aspire to greatness.
This is going to be awesome.
Except… maybe it’s not?
Or, it’s not that it’s not awesome, more that it’s… hard.
Wait — hard? Even once we’ve done the hard stuff, the purpose and the vision and the values and all of it? I thought those were the hard bits?
Well, sure. Those are the hard foundational bits. But then we have to live it.
I did my Dare to Lead™ training with Brené Brown in 2019. I would love to say it transformed my leadership. But what it actually transformed was the kind of leader I aspire to be.
Like if you train with Arnold Schwarzenegger, your muscles will get a bit bigger, but your aspirations will get a lot bigger. All of a sudden, the definition of success has changed, along with the definition of good enough.
So then I had to practice.
And then I stuffed it up.
And then I stuffed it up again.
And then I realised that I have to practice every day. For the rest of my life.
There is no arrival. There is no end game. There is only practice. There is only doing your best, stuffing it up, owning it, and trying again.
That’s what they don’t tell you about daring leadership. That you can learn the techniques but then you have to practice every day.
People often come to Dare to Lead with some kind of struggle. Their boss doesn’t listen. The annoying person next to them doesn’t pull their weight but takes all the credit. Their team is full of dysfunction but nobody’s willing to name it.
The hope is that the programme will fix the problems. But it won’t. It will give you the tools to address them. But then you have to do the work.
When you show up to your workout with Arnold, he will give you tools — weights, exercises, guidance, motivation.
But you’re the one who has to do the work. And the work is hard. And the work doesn’t end.
So what it comes down to is payoff.
We exercise our bodies so we can feel good, enjoy life, live longer, have better sex.
We practice daring leadership so we can have deeper, more profound, more honest, more powerful relationships with our teams. So we can deal with hardships as they arise and put them to rest forever once dealt with. So we have skills to take action on problems rather than repeating the same complaints over and over. So we can have a greater sense of agency and choice in how we deal with challenging people, how we choose to show up, and how we live our lives.
That is what you get with daring leadership.
They don’t tell you how hard it is. But I can tell you it’s 100% worth it.
Noho ora mai rā,
Kaila
