summary ofDare to LeadBook by Brené Brown, PhD.

first KEY POINT

The essence of effective leadership

People naturally react to the same situation in different ways. Sometimes, those reactions come across negatively, even when that's not our intention. At work, they influence everything from the goals we choose to how we organize our day.Take a leader who consistently sets impossible deadlines. It may come from a strong need to move quickly rather than a desire to pressure the team. The problem is that the team can't see what's driving those decisions. They just see an impossible deadline and a leader who is never satisfied.Sometimes, these deadlines come from insecurity rather than ambition: a fear that their leadership isn't good enough.

A team should have a shared understanding of all required work, achieved through effective communication. For example, the leadership team working with Dr. Brené Brown decided that each person needed to take notes during meetings and work together on estimating deadlines. Doing this allowed them to communicate effectively and see where others needed help.The other quiet trap is binary thinking: sorting people into one box and leaving them there. Operations against marketing. Finance against creativity. Spenders against savers. Dreamers against the stick-in-the-muds.Every time you reduce someone to a single trait, you shrink what they're allowed to become. People hold far more range than that, and a strong leader keeps making room for it. What follows is how to lead in a way that draws that range out — and how to stand apart while you do it.