Blast From The Past: Daring Leadership Part 3

Show Notes:

We are continuing to re-share a "Blast from the Past" series that I did back in Season 1 of Behind the Line. It was one of my favourite series and I think really important content for those who may have missed it the first time. The series takes a look at Brené Brown's work in her book, Dare to Lead, and discusses applications to helping professions where it is absolutely IMPERATIVE that we improve leadership and systems, because they are hella broken. I hope you'll share this series with your sphere of influence and that together we can make it different...

As we continue our series on daring leadership, following the work of Brené Brown and her book Dare to Lead, today we are talking about living into our values. This is about being able to identify what is important to us and ways to engage in our lives that align with these values. 

Too often we fail to reflect on our values and they become background to our daily choices. We go into survival mode, getting through the days and the challenges but lacking intention. Living into our values asks us to get clear on what really matters to us, the core aspects of what we believe matters most. It then means stepping out of survival mode and developing clear intentionality in behaving in ways that reflect these values, even (and especially) when it is unpopular or uncomfortable. To do this Brené outlines three steps:

Step One: We can’t live into values that we can’t name.

You can access a list of values developed by Brené and her team, here (click on the one called List of Values). Use this tool to narrow down one or two values that feel defining of you. Brené instructs that you can ask yourself these three questions to help guide the process (taken from Dare to Lead, 2018): 

1.      Does this define me?

2.      Is this who I am at my best?

3.      Is this a filter that I use to make hard decisions?

Step two: taking values from BS to behaviour.

This involves aligning your actions to the values you’ve identified – it’s where rubber meets road. Brené suggests three questions to help clarify these behaviours (taken from Dare to Lead, 2018):

1.      What are three behaviours that support your value?

2.      What are three slippery behaviours that are outside your value?

3.      What’s an example of a time when you were fully living into this value?

Step three: empathy and self compassion, the two most important seats in the arena.

We need to use empathy to be curious listeners through the process of living into our values and allowing others to live into theirs. We need to utilize empathy to bridge between teams who have varying values as well as varying experiences of being in the arena that shape how they show up. We need self-compassion to manage when we fudge things up, to extend ourselves some grace and an assumption of positive intent. 

Episode Challenge:

1.      Use the List of Values curated by Brené and her team and narrow this down to one or two that feel defining for you. Use the questions above to help the process. If you are in a position of leadership, consider asking those in your team to do the same exercise and discuss the ways your values show up in your work. 

2.      Work through the “operationalizing” process to identify behaviours that allow you to walk your talk.