Discover Brené Brown's Dare to Lead leadership training framework. Learn the four skill sets—vulnerability, values, trust, resilience—that build courageous leaders and high-performing teams.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Mon 5th January 2026
Brené Brown's leadership training, crystallized in her "Dare to Lead" programme, challenges conventional wisdom about effective leadership. Based on seven years of research involving over 150 organizations and 10,000+ leaders, Brown's work demonstrates that courage and vulnerability—qualities traditionally viewed as weaknesses—function as essential leadership competencies. Organizations implementing Dare to Lead report 34% improvement in psychological safety scores and 28% increase in innovation metrics.
Yet here's the uncomfortable truth many executives resist: armoured leadership—the defensive posturing, emotional invulnerability, and self-protective behaviours leaders adopt to appear strong—actually undermines effectiveness. When leaders cannot acknowledge uncertainty, admit mistakes, or engage authentically, they create cultures of fear masquerading as professionalism.
This article explores Brené Brown's leadership training framework, examining how the four teachable skill sets transform individuals from defended managers into courageous leaders capable of building trust, navigating complexity, and inspiring genuine commitment.
Dare to Lead is Brené Brown's research-based leadership development programme teaching four measurable skill sets that build courageous leadership: Rumbling with Vulnerability, Living Into Your Values, BRAVING Trust, and Learning to Rise. Unlike traditional leadership training focusing on techniques and tactics, Dare to Lead addresses the internal work—self-awareness, values clarity, emotional intelligence—that enables sustainable leadership effectiveness.
The programme's foundation rests on Brown's counter-intuitive finding: courage and vulnerability aren't opposing forces—they're inseparable. You cannot demonstrate courage without accepting vulnerability. Every consequential leadership act—giving honest feedback, making difficult decisions, championing unpopular changes, admitting mistakes—requires embracing uncertainty and emotional exposure.
Brown's research began with shame and vulnerability studies, examining how people navigate difficult emotions and build resilience. When executives approached her asking how these insights applied to leadership, Brown initially resisted: "I'm not a leadership expert."
However, as she interviewed leaders across sectors, patterns emerged. The most effective leaders didn't avoid vulnerability through hierarchical authority or emotional distance—they acknowledged uncertainty whilst maintaining conviction, admitted limitations whilst demonstrating competence, and created cultures where others could be similarly honest.
This paradox—strength through acknowledged vulnerability—challenged decades of leadership mythology celebrating invulnerability.
Most leadership programmes focus on skills (strategic planning, financial acumen, operational excellence) whilst ignoring the emotional and psychological dimensions determining whether leaders can actually deploy those skills effectively.
You can master negotiation frameworks yet struggle to have difficult conversations because you fear conflict. You can understand change management theory yet fail to implement transformations because you need certainty before acting. You can know servant leadership principles yet lead autocratically because admitting you don't have all answers feels unbearable.
Dare to Lead addresses this gap—the internal barriers preventing leaders from applying what they intellectually know.
Brown's most significant finding: courage is not an innate trait but a collection of four skill sets that prove teachable, measurable, and observable. Organizations can systematically develop courageous leadership rather than hoping it emerges spontaneously.
Rumbling with vulnerability means having the willingness and ability to lean into discomfort, have difficult conversations, and navigate uncertainty whilst maintaining authentic connection. This foundational skill set enables all others—without vulnerability capacity, you cannot truly embody values, build trust, or rise from failures.
Vulnerability in leadership context doesn't mean oversharing, emotional dumping, or inappropriate self-disclosure. It means:
The British stiff-upper-lip tradition paradoxically demonstrates this principle: wartime leaders like Churchill didn't hide struggle—they acknowledged difficulty ("blood, toil, tears, and sweat") whilst maintaining resolve. This honest assessment of reality created credibility that rah-rah optimism never could.
Brown identifies common "armour"—self-protective behaviours leaders adopt to avoid vulnerability:
Driving Perfectionism: Using impossible standards to avoid criticism ("If I'm perfect, you can't hurt me")
Foreboding Joy: Refusing to acknowledge success for fear of disappointment ("Don't get too excited; something bad will happen")
Numbing: Avoiding difficult emotions through workaholism, cynicism, or detachment
Viking or Victim: Approaching situations as combat requiring dominance or powerlessness requiring rescue
Zigzagging: Avoiding difficult conversations through constant course changes
These defensive patterns feel protective short-term but create long-term dysfunction—teams that can't surface problems, cultures that punish honesty, and leaders isolated from reality.
Practice Grounded Confidence: Acknowledge what you don't know whilst demonstrating competence in what you do
Normalize Discomfort: Explicitly name that important conversations feel awkward—acknowledging discomfort paradoxically reduces it
Set Boundaries: Vulnerability requires discernment about appropriate sharing in professional contexts
Cultivate Shame Resilience: Recognize shame (the feeling of being flawed and unworthy) and practice self-compassion
Living into your values means operationalizing abstract ideals into specific, observable behaviours you can practice daily and hold yourself accountable to. Most leaders can articulate organizational values; few can describe the concrete behaviours those values require.
Brown's research found that most people identify 10-12 values as important—but truly living into values requires prioritizing. The Dare to Lead process asks: What two values are so important that if you couldn't honor them, you wouldn't recognize yourself?
This forced-choice creates clarity. When "innovation" and "quality" both matter but conflict in a specific decision, which wins? When "transparency" and "privacy" both feel important but create tension, how do you navigate? Clarified priorities enable values-aligned decisions under pressure.
The critical step: translating values into observable behaviours. Consider "courage" as organizational value:
Vague: "We value courage"
Behavioural:
This specificity transforms abstract values into actionable practices you can model, teach, and hold people accountable to.
Living into values doesn't mean avoiding conflicts—it means navigating them consciously. When competing values collide:
The British abolitionist movement demonstrated this principle: William Wilberforce and colleagues prioritized human dignity over economic prosperity, accepting significant economic costs to end slavery because their values hierarchy demanded it.
BRAVING trust provides a framework for understanding, building, and repairing trust through seven elements: Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Non-judgment, and Generosity. Rather than treating trust as mysterious interpersonal chemistry, BRAVING makes it concrete and discussable.
B - Boundaries: You respect my boundaries, and when you're not clear about what's okay and not okay, you ask. You're willing to say no.
Leaders who can't set boundaries create resentment. When you say yes to requests beyond capacity, you eventually fail commitments—destroying trust. Paradoxically, leaders who set clear boundaries build more trust than those who overcommit.
R - Reliability: You do what you say you'll do. This means being aware of your competencies and limitations so you don't overpromise.
British punctuality traditions reflect reliability's importance: when you commit to meeting at 10:00, you arrive at 10:00. Small reliability builds foundation for trusting you on consequential matters.
A - Accountability: You own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends.
Leaders who cannot apologize undermine cultures of accountability. When senior leaders deflect responsibility, everyone learns that admitting mistakes proves dangerous.
V - Vault: You don't share information or experiences that are not yours to share. I need to know that my confidences are kept, and that you're not sharing with me any information about other people that should be confidential.
This cuts both ways: maintaining others' confidences whilst not triangulating by sharing confidential information about third parties.
I - Integrity: You choose courage over comfort. You choose what's right over what's fun, fast, or easy. You practice your values, not just profess them.
Integrity means your behaviour aligns with stated values even when inconvenient. It's doing the right thing when no one's watching and when watching carries costs.
N - Non-judgment: I can ask for what I need, and you can ask for what you need. We can talk about how we feel without judgment.
Creating cultures where people can acknowledge struggles, ask questions, and request help without shame or punishment.
G - Generosity: You extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others.
Assuming positive intent rather than immediately attributing malice. Asking "What story am I telling myself about this situation?" to check interpretations against reality.
Before building trust with others, leaders must examine self-trust using the BRAVING framework:
Leaders who cannot trust themselves struggle to build genuine trust with others.
Learning to rise means developing resilience through understanding your emotional responses to failure, disappointment, and setback—then choosing behaviours that align with values rather than reacting from self-protection.
Brown identifies a three-part process people move through after experiencing difficulty:
1. The Reckoning: Recognizing emotion and getting curious about its source rather than numbing or avoiding
Physical awareness often precedes emotional recognition: tension, shallow breathing, defensive posture. Leaders who learn to recognize these signals can pause before reactive behaviours.
2. The Rumble: Examining the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening
When someone criticizes your work, what story emerges? "They're out to get me," "I'm incompetent," "They don't understand the constraints I faced"? These narratives—often inaccurate—drive behaviour. The rumble involves questioning: "What's the most generous interpretation?" "What am I making up about this situation?" "What additional information do I need?"
3. The Revolution: Making conscious choices about how to engage based on values
After recognizing emotions and examining stories, choose responses aligned with who you want to be. This doesn't mean suppressing emotions—it means channeling them productively.
A particularly valuable practice: when feeling hurt or angry, Brown teaches leaders to identify whether they need to "offload" emotion before engaging productively. If yes, do it with a trusted confidant—not the person involved.
This prevents dumping unprocessed emotion on others, damaging trust through what Brown calls "hurt people hurting people." Process feelings first, then engage once you can be present and constructive.
Organizational transformation requires more than individual leaders reading books—it demands systematic development of these skills throughout the culture.
Brown trains certified facilitators worldwide to deliver Dare to Lead programmes. The training includes:
Two-Day Core Programme: Experiential workshop exploring all four skill sets through exercises, practice, and application to real leadership challenges
Workbooks and Tools: Structured frameworks for continued practice beyond training
Cultural Integration: Guidance on embedding courage-building practices into organizational systems
Organizations implementing comprehensively report stronger results than those treating it as one-off training event.
Individual courage cannot thrive in cultures punishing vulnerability. Organizations must align systems with daring leadership principles:
Psychological Safety: Google's Project Aristotle found psychological safety—the shared belief that team members can take interpersonal risks—as the strongest predictor of team effectiveness. Dare to Lead provides vocabulary and frameworks for building this foundation.
Values Alignment: Ensuring organizational values translate to observable behaviours embedded in hiring, performance evaluation, and promotion decisions
Learning Cultures: Treating failures as learning opportunities rather than career-limiting events
Feedback Norms: Establishing clear feedback expectations and practicing difficult conversations regularly
The British cycling team's transformation under Dave Brailsford demonstrates these principles: by creating cultures where athletes could honestly discuss struggles, coaches could admit uncertainty, and failures informed improvements, they achieved unprecedented Olympic success.
Organizations track Dare to Lead impact through:
The most sophisticated organizations establish baseline measurements before implementation, enabling rigorous assessment of programme impact.
No leadership framework proves universally applicable. Dare to Lead faces legitimate criticisms worth examining:
Critics argue that emphasizing vulnerability can create cultures of over-sharing where boundaries collapse and professional norms erode. Valid concern: vulnerability without discernment becomes problematic.
Brown addresses this through emphasis on boundaries as core trust element. Vulnerability requires judgment about appropriate sharing in professional contexts—it's not emotional exhibitionism.
Dare to Lead emerges from American organizational contexts. How do principles translate to cultures with different norms around emotional expression, hierarchy, and directness?
Some adaptations prove necessary. Asian cultures valuing harmony might require different approaches to "rumbling" than confrontational American styles. British understatement might express values differently than American directness. However, core principles—building trust, clarifying values, rising from setbacks—appear cross-culturally relevant even if behavioral expressions vary.
Can organizations truly develop these competencies systematically, or do results depend on individual leaders' commitment? Does impact sustain when trained leaders move on?
Evidence suggests sustainability requires embedding practices into organizational systems rather than relying on heroic individuals. Organizations treating Dare to Lead as ongoing cultural work rather than one-time training event show better long-term results.
You needn't attend formal programmes to benefit from Dare to Lead principles. Individual leaders can apply concepts immediately:
Use the Daring Leadership Assessment available on Brown's website to evaluate current capabilities across the four skill sets. Identify specific development areas rather than vague aspiration to "be more vulnerable."
Complete the values clarification exercise: From Brown's comprehensive list, identify your top two non-negotiable values. Define 3-5 observable behaviours each value requires. Practice those behaviours deliberately for 90 days.
When trust breaks down with a colleague, use BRAVING as diagnostic framework:
"I'm experiencing a trust issue, and I want to understand it better. Using the BRAVING framework, I think the challenge relates to reliability—I've noticed several commitments that weren't met. Can we discuss what's happening and how to rebuild that trust?"
This vocabulary transforms vague discomfort into productive conversation.
When experiencing failure or disappointment:
Document this process through journaling, building metacognitive awareness over time.
Dare to Lead applies across all leadership levels because courage-building skills transcend hierarchy. Frontline managers often need these competencies more urgently than executives—they navigate direct reports' daily challenges, deliver difficult feedback, and manage conflicts without distance senior leaders enjoy. Team leads, project managers, and individual contributors with influence all benefit from vulnerability skills, values clarity, trust-building frameworks, and resilience practices. In fact, organizations often achieve greater impact training frontline and middle managers than exclusively focusing on executives, as these leaders directly shape daily employee experiences.
Most leadership training focuses on external skills—strategy, finance, operations—whilst Dare to Lead addresses internal dimensions: self-awareness, emotional regulation, values alignment, relationship quality. Traditional programmes teach what to do; Dare to Lead addresses who to be and how to show up authentically. Additionally, whilst many programmes promote vulnerability conceptually, Dare to Lead provides specific, actionable frameworks (BRAVING, rumbling, rising) making abstract concepts concrete. The research foundation distinguishes it from guru-based approaches—Brown's findings emerge from systematic study, not personal opinion. However, Dare to Lead complements rather than replaces technical skill development.
Absolutely. Daring leadership doesn't require extraversion, charisma, or dominant personalities. It requires willingness to be honest, align behaviours with values, and maintain authentic connections—qualities introverts often demonstrate more naturally than extraverts. Many introverted leaders excel at deep listening (supporting vulnerability and trust), thoughtful reflection (essential for values alignment), and one-on-one relationship building (where trust often develops). Brown herself identifies as introverted, and Dare to Lead explicitly rejects "command and control" models favoring extraverted styles. The courage to set boundaries and decline overcommitments may actually come more naturally to introverts protecting energy and maintaining integrity.
This concern reflects misunderstanding about vulnerability's definition in leadership context. Vulnerability doesn't mean emotional dumping, weakness, or uncertainty about direction—it means honest acknowledgment of reality and authentic connection. Churchill demonstrated this balance perfectly: acknowledging difficulties ("blood, toil, tears, and sweat") whilst maintaining absolute resolve. You maintain authority through competence, clear direction, and decisive action whilst demonstrating vulnerability by admitting mistakes, acknowledging uncertainty on specific issues, and asking for input. The combination—confident humility—builds credibility more effectively than false invulnerability. Employees recognize leaders don't have all answers; pretending otherwise undermines rather than enhances authority.
This creates genuine dilemmas requiring careful judgment. In toxic cultures actively punishing honesty, indiscriminate vulnerability proves unwise. However, several strategies remain available: practice vulnerability selectively with trusted colleagues, building trust incrementally; model vulnerability-adjacent behaviours like admitting knowledge gaps in low-stakes situations; focus on trust-building elements less dependent on emotional disclosure (reliability, accountability); and work toward culture change through coalition-building with like-minded leaders. Alternatively, recognize that organizations fundamentally incompatible with your values may require exit. You cannot sustain authentic leadership in environments demanding inauthenticity indefinitely without significant psychological cost.
Individual skill development shows early results—6-8 weeks of deliberate practice produces noticeable improvement in specific behaviours like giving feedback or setting boundaries. Team-level impact emerges over 3-6 months as psychological safety increases and trust deepens. Organizational culture transformation requires 18-36 months of sustained effort as new norms replace entrenched patterns. However, timeline varies based on baseline culture, leadership commitment, and implementation consistency. Organizations treating Dare to Lead as ongoing practice rather than one-time event see accelerating returns over time—early improvements compound as vulnerability becomes culturally normative. Patience proves essential; courage-building represents fundamental culture change, not surface behavior modification.
Counter-intuitively, Dare to Lead principles may prove most valuable in high-performance contexts. Organizations competing through innovation require psychological safety enabling honest dialogue about failures, uncertainty, and emerging ideas. Cutthroat cultures create defensiveness undermining collaboration essential for complex problem-solving. Research shows teams with high psychological safety outperform low-safety teams even in demanding environments—possibly especially in demanding environments where learning from mistakes and adapting quickly creates competitive advantage. However, implementation requires nuance: vulnerability doesn't mean lowering performance standards; it means creating cultures where people can acknowledge struggles whilst maintaining accountability. High-performing Dare to Lead cultures combine fierce standards with genuine support.
Brené Brown's Dare to Lead framework challenges leadership mythology celebrating invulnerability, offering evidence-based alternative: courage emerges through acknowledged vulnerability, trust builds through specific behaviours, values guide through operationalized practices, and resilience develops through intentional processes.
The four skill sets—rumbling with vulnerability, living into values, BRAVING trust, and learning to rise—provide actionable pathways from defended management to courageous leadership. These aren't mysterious qualities some leaders possess innately; they're learnable competencies organizations can develop systematically.
Implementation proves challenging. Armoured leadership feels safer short-term even whilst undermining effectiveness long-term. Organizations espousing these values often reward opposite behaviors through promotion and recognition systems. Individual courage cannot compensate for toxic cultures indefinitely.
Yet the alternative—continuing leadership-as-performance whilst authentic connection, genuine trust, and sustainable engagement erode—proves ultimately untenable. The accelerating complexity facing organizations demands adaptive leadership impossible without psychological safety, values alignment, and resilience these principles enable.
Begin where you are: Assess current capabilities honestly. Clarify values and operationalize them into daily behaviors. Practice BRAVING conversations building trust incrementally. Develop rising processes supporting recovery from setbacks. These small acts compound over time into transformed leadership and organizational culture.
Brown's most significant contribution may be providing vocabulary for discussing leadership dimensions previously relegated to soft-skills margins. Vulnerability, courage, trust, values—these aren't optional leadership accessories but essential capabilities determining whether organizations merely function or genuinely thrive.
The question facing every leader: Will you continue performing invulnerability even as it isolates you from reality, or dare to lead authentically despite discomfort? The courage to choose vulnerability, as Brown's research demonstrates, ultimately proves the courage that counts.
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