This book is both amazing and exhausting. I read it whilst lying on a sun lounger next to a pool when I was on holiday and I still felt like I needed a lie down.
The concepts keep coming. Page after page there’s a new insight, a new definition, and a new model to get your head around. It’s gigantic!
The biggest little book I’ve ever read.
The book is set out in 4 parts. The first part talks about ‘rumbling with vulnerability’, which is a totally new concept for me. My knowledge of rumbling comes from the 1994 song by Ant and Dec (Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble!) and the phrase is generally used before the punches start flying in a boxing match! So, it’s use in a professional context is quite foreign to me. Brene uses it to describe a cards-on-the-table, open and honest discussion which might raise difficult topics where you need to hang in there to problem solve with your colleagues, even when the going gets tough (read more from Brene here).
Part 2 talks about values. This made me re-evaluate some work I’d done a few years before on my personal values, and get my pencil out to working through the list of values on p.188. Part 3 focusses on trust and part 4 on putting it all into practice.
There is so much in this book that you really do need to supplement it with the videos and articles that Brene and team have produced in the Dare to Lead Hub. I’ve already done the Daring Leadership Assessment, which has been helpful in thinking about my own professional development
I feel like I need to read it again because there are some salient points I want to draw out to ensure that I can confidently share them with others and there are things I want to put into practice – and I want to be absolutely clear before doing so.
On the face of it, this is a book, but actually, I think it’s more of a movement. And I’m happy to be moved by it.
5 out of 5. Probably 6
