40 Empowering Quotes from Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

by Kenneth Wong
May 16, 2020April 8, 2024

How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture? In her latest book, Dare to Lead, Brené Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love.

Brown writes, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.”

Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership.

Keep scrolling to read the top 40 Empowering Quotes from Dare to Lead by Brené Brown.

Get The Book: Dare to Lead by Brené Brown available now on Amazon.

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40 Empowering Quotes from Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.
We fail the minute we let someone else define success for us.
At the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of my life, I want to say I contributed more than I criticized.
The courage to be vulnerable is not about winning or losing, it’s about the courage to show up when you can’t predict or control the outcome.
Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.
Show up for people in pain and don’t look away.
If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I’m not interested in or open to your feedback.
If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves including their unarmored, whole hearts—so that we can innovate, solve problems, and serve people—we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected.
Only when diverse perspectives are included, respected, and valued can we start to get a full picture of the world.
Daring leaders work to make sure people can be themselves and feel a sense of belonging.
Feeding people half-truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel more comfortable) is unkind.
To be the person who we long to be—we must be vulnerable. We must take off the armor, put down the weapons, show up, and let ourselves be seen.
If you have more than three priorities, you have no priorities.
Living BIG (boundaries, integrity, and generosity).
Trust is in fact earned in the smallest of moments.
Choose courage over comfort.
Our ability to be daring leaders will never be greater than our capacity for vulnerability.
Shame is the most corrosive thing in work culture, as it changes the belief of who we can be and what we can do better.
Cynicism and sarcasm are bad in person, and even worse when they travel through email and text.
There is absolutely no innovation without failure.
People are opting out of vital conversations about diversity and inclusivity because they fear looking wrong, saying something wrong, or being wrong. Choosing our own comfort over hard conversations is the epitome of privilege, and it corrodes trust and moves us away from meaningful and lasting change.
We desperately need more leaders who are committed to courageous, wholehearted leadership and who are self-aware enough to lead from their hearts, rather than unevolved leaders who lead from hurt and fear.
Write a new ending for yourself, for the people you’re meant to serve and support, and for your culture.
The level of collective courage in an organisation is the absolute best predictor of that organisation’s ability to be successful.
A brave leader is someone who says I see you. I hear you. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m going to keep listening and asking questions.
Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behaviour.
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
Silence is not brave leadership, and silence is not a component of brave cultures.
The less we talk about shame, the more control it has over our lives.
The courage to be vulnerable is not about winning or losing, it’s about the courage to show up when you can’t predict or control the outcome.
Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to someone you love. Most of us shame, belittle, and criticize ourselves in ways we’d never think of doing to others.
Courage is contagious.
Daring leaders must care for and be connected to the people they lead.
There is nothing more uncertain than the creative process, and there is absolutely no innovation without failure.
Self-kindness is self-empathy.
We need to trust to be vulnerable, and we need to be vulnerable in order to build trust.
Self awareness and self-love matter. Who we are is how we lead.
Daring is not saying “I’m willing to risk failure.” Daring is saying “I know I will eventually fail, and I’m still all in.
Wherever perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun.
Daring leadership is ultimately about serving other people, not ourselves. That’s why we choose courage.

Which quote from Dare to Lead by Brené Brown is your favorite?

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