Case 9.3 The Arena of Authenticity

Note: This case study provides insights into Dr. Bren Browns personal history, her strengths, and the trajectory of her career. You might find it informative to also view her Netflix special, The Call to Courage, or her videos on TED.com, which can provide additional insight into her leadership behavior.

It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man who sits and points out how the doer of deeds could have done things better and how he falls and stumbles. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood. . . . But when hes in the arena, at best, he wins, and at worst, he loses, but when he fails, when he loses, he does so daring greatly.

This passage, inspired by a speech by former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt (Dalton, 2002) is one that Dr. Bren Brown teaches, preaches, and lives by.

The author of five number-one New York Times best-selling books who has become a world-renowned thought leader and sought-after speaker, Brown is more likely to bill herself as simply a research professor. She is, in fact, a professor at the University of Houston with a $2 million endowed chair funded by the Huffington Foundation, but also an entrepreneur, CEO, mother, and wife who has built a very large following around the study of such difficult topics as shame, vulnerability, courage, and empathy.

Brown is a high-energy Harry Potter fan who prefers shit kickers (cowboy boots) or clogs and jeans to just about any form of business attire and doesnt hesitate to wear these even for her most visible engagements. She would be the first to say that authenticity and courage do not happen without vulnerability. In her words, vulnerability is not a weakness . . . it is our most accurate measurement of courageto be vulnerable, to let ourselves be seen, to be honest (Brown, 2012).

Browns research data, as well as her personal life experiences, clearly support what she says. The man in the arena quote, a rallying cry in many of her books, came to her at a particularly low point. She had recently delivered a TEDxHouston talk on the subject of vulnerability. Rather than deliver a comfortable academic talk complete with academic terminology and data, she opted instead to share a very personal story of her own challenges with vulnerability and an emotional breakdown she experienced when faced with the truth of her own data. That truththat vulnerability, a topic she despised and personally avoidedand the courage to be imperfect were necessary ingredients to living what she coined as a whole-hearted life. They could not be separated.

She had chosen research as her livelihood because, in her words, the definition of research is . . . to study phenomena for the explicit reason to control and predict. But her research results challenged this premise. What she found was the way to live is with vulnerability and to stop controlling and predicting (Brown, 2010).

While the talk was well received, it left Brown feeling exposed and regretting sharing such a deeply personal and revealing story. She found some solace in convincing herself that the talk would likely only be watched by perhaps 500 or so local people. Instead, it went viral. The Power of Vulnerability has become one of the most accessed TED Talks with nearly 50 million views (TED, n.d.).

Instantly propelled into the public spotlight, her mortification was heightened by the anonymous ugly comments made about her on social media, which led her to seek comfort in a jar of peanut butter, binge-watching Downton Abbey, and not leaving her house for three days (Winfrey, 2013). Curious about the time period depicted in the show, Brown did a little research and happened upon Teddy Roosevelts famous words. It became a turning point for her.

The fear of shame, the fear of criticism, was so great in my life up until that pointI mean, just paralyzingthat I engineered smallness in my life. I did not take chances. I did not put myself out there. I mean, I just didnt. It wasnt worth it to me to step into my power and play big, because I didnt know if I could literally, physically withstand the criticism (Efros, Findlay, Mussman, & Restrepo, 2019).

Interestingly, Brown wasnt a stranger to withstanding criticism and marching to the beat of her own drum. Her career was shaped by choices to remain true to her own path.

A fifth-generation Texan, Cassandra Bren Brown was a plucky, curious young girl who grew to be tenacious and outspoken with a quick and infectious wit. However, she spent most of her young adult life feeling like an outsider. This sense of not belonging followed her throughout her school years. In high school, she was not selected for the schools drill team (the Bearkadettes) despite her years of dance lessons, knowing the try-out routine by heart, and weighing six pounds under the required weight. She would later learn that, though she was considered a solid dancer, she just wasnt thought to be Bearkadette material, leaving her heart broken and ashamed (Brown, 2017).

But these formative years shaped her later success. I owed my career to not belonging. First as a child, then as a teenager. I found my primary coping mechanism for not belonging in studying people. I was a seeker of pattern and connection. I knew if I could recognize patterns in peoples behaviors and connect those patterns to what people were feeling and doing, I could find my way, she said. I used my pattern recognition skills to anticipate what people wanted, what they thought, or what they were doing. I learned how to say the right thing or show up the right way. I became an expert fitter-in, a chameleon (Brown, 2017, p. 16).

After high school, Brown had unsettled years of rebellion, hitchhiking across Europe and working as a bartender and waitress, gaining a variety of life experiences. She returned to college and, at 29, graduated at the top of her class with a bachelors degree in social work and went on to graduate school. Through her studies, Brown found a passion for social work and qualitative research. She became interested in and trained in a methodology known as grounded theory, which starts with a topic rather than a theory and, through the process of collecting and analyzing data based on discussions with the study participants, reveals patterns and theories. The grounded theory model fit Browns gift for storytelling and her ability to connect patterns in her subjects through the listening and observation skills she developed as coping mechanisms in her teens.

I fell in love with the richness and depth of qualitative research, she said. Storytelling is my DNA, and I couldnt resist the idea of research as story-catching. Stories are data with a soul and no methodology honors that more than grounded theory (Brown, 2019b).

Unfortunately, the grounded theory model is a departure from traditional academic research, which tends to place higher value on the cleaner, more measurable outcomes of quantitative research. Despite being discouraged by other academics and counseled to not use the methodology for her doctoral dissertation, Brown pushed forward. And like the research method she espouses, Brown allowed the stories emerging from the data to shape her explorations, and she began to study the emotion of shame.

I didnt sign on to study shameone of the most (if not the most) complex and multifaceted emotions that we experience. A topic that not only took me six years to understand, but an emotion that is so powerful that the mere mention of the word shame triggers discomfort and avoidance in people. I innocently started with an interest in learning more about the anatomy of connection, she says. Because the research participants had the courage to share their stories, experiences, and wisdom, I forged a path that defined my career and my life (Brown, 2019b).

Those research participants, who often asked Brown to share her findings, inspired her to once again deviate from a traditional academic trajectory by publishing her work in more mainstream publications and journals rather than as peer-reviewed articles in academic journals. Soon her work became available for the masses and later became best-selling books.

Brown brings herself totally to every speaking engagement, despite efforts to temper the subject matter of her talks or her way of delivering them. She has been asked by some not to talk about uncomfortable things like shame and vulnerability, even though those are her areas of expertise. Religious groups have requested she not cuss, and business groups have asked she not use the word God in her talks. She has been asked to dress differently. But Brown says the only way she can be effective is by being completely herself, knowing that you cant impress on others the importance of vulnerability, and how it relates to courage, if you dont have the courage to be authentically yourself.

Being able to maintain this authenticity isnt an innate skill, Brown says, but requires using shared language, skills, tools, and daily practices that can support us through the rumble. She defines the rumble as a discussion, conversation, or meeting defined by a commitment to such things as being vulnerable, sticking with the messiness of problem identification and problem solving, being fearless in owning our parts, and listening with the same passion with which we want to be heard (Brown, 2019c).

More than anything else, when someone says, Lets rumble, it cues me to show up with an open heart and mind so we can serve the work and each other, not our egos (Brown, 2019c).

The fearlessness of owning who you are and risking vulnerability to find the courage to bring yourself authentically into your work, your family, and your community is what Brown is all about. In living by the ideals she espouses to millions of followers, she has unwittingly achieved the true belonging that had eluded her. She encapsulates her philosophy with a simple observation: True belonging doesnt require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are (Brown, 2017, p. 40).

Questions

1. Do you find Bren Brown to be an authentic leader? Why or why not?

3. Discuss how each of the five dimensions of authentic leadership identified by George apply to Bren Brown:

a.Purpose

b.Values

c.Relationships

d.Self-discipline

e.Heart