~3 minute read
Last week I was in San Antonio, TX, USA being accredited by none other than Brené Brown in her Dare to LeadTM work. I have so much gratitude for Brené and her team who accepted me into their tribe, connected me with more of my tribe, and reconnected me with myself.
I learnt so much; the richness and depth of Brené’s knowledge, compassion and generosity created an environment for exploring and deepening own knowledge. The richness of the discussions with Brené, her team and fellow participants enabled self-awareness to grow and deepen, and friendships to be formed quickly; and I have no doubt that these will continue to flourish and endure.
I have so much to share with you, including how I plan to integrate my learning from this experience with my own work on courage, including the results of insium’s Workplace Courage Questionnaire (CQ). For now, I’d like to share the most significant learning I had, the learning which reconnected me to me.
What is your call to courage?
Brené posed the question: “As a facilitator, what is your call to courage?” A few responses surfaced quickly for me, but as I sat with this question the most important answer become increasingly clear – to be confident and truly own the knowledge, skills and experience that I have to offer with respect to building courage in leaders, which now includes Brené’s work. The confidence not to suffer from imposter syndrome in this important work.
For the next part of this reflection, Brené asked that we consider each of the 7 behaviours of trust: BRAVING – Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Nonjudgement, Generosity – and consider these with respect to self to enable our call to courage. As Brené said, “How can you build trust with others if you don’t trust yourself?”
Of particular import for me were the following behaviours of trust and the comments and questions that Brené posed:
- Vault: you don’t share information that is not yours to share; which I don’t, I pride myself on keeping confidentialities. Brené mentioned, this may be information about self … now that raised a different perspective which made me think hard and feel deep.
- Integrity: choosing courage over comfort. Now you may think this is easy for me, after all, I call myself the CourageChick. And yet, after all, I know that with respect to my call to courage, at times I do choose the fast and the easy, the comfort. Sometimes, it’s been hard to have the discussions about courage without feeling like an imposter and so I have ended the discussion.
- Nonjudgment: asking for what I need without judgement, and your being able to ask for what you need without judgment. Brené asked, “Who here likes to help others? Who here likes to ask for help?” When others ask for help, I respond with an open heart and an open mind. However, I’m not so good at asking for help.
I reflected specifically on what these behaviours of trust mean for me to build trust with myself in order to answer my call to courage. It was hard work and it was also liberating; it reconnected me with me.
“How can you build trust with others if you don’t trust yourself?”
With BRAVING and further reflection of my own past courageous acts, I now have a plan to answer my call to courage and to bring this work to others, all the while trusting in myself. That doesn’t mean that it’ll be easy. It does mean I will ask for help. And I have hope – I have my call to courage; I have identified a number of paths to achieve this, and I am so passionate and committed to this work that I will persevere with confidence.
Brené, her team, my fellow participants and I are keen to build courage in our workplaces. I would love to share what I have learnt with you and your workplace.
I’ll be calling you to discuss your call to courage soon … unless you call me sooner.
Proudly and gratefully signing off as a Certified Dare to LeadTM Facilitator,
@CourageChick
Leading with courage 