Daring Leadership
Daring leadership is the operational counterpart to armored leadership — the practice of leading through vulnerability rather than defending against it. Brown's Dare to Lead framework identifies four skill sets that constitute daring leadership: rumbling with vulnerability, living into values, BRAVING trust, and learning to rise. Each skill set is teachable, measurable, and — critically for the AI transition — more predictive of organizational performance than the technical sophistication of the tools deployed. Daring leadership is not a style or a disposition. It is a set of practices that leaders either do or do not do, and that subordinates either do or do not experience in their daily working lives.
In the AI Story
The AI transition creates conditions that specifically test daring leadership. The leader navigating the transition must admit what she does not know, acknowledge the legitimate fears of her team, model the emotional regulation the moment requires, and resist the pressure to perform confidence she cannot earn. Each of these actions is vulnerable. Each violates the implicit norms most organizations have cultivated for decades. The leader who goes first — who says openly that she is learning alongside her team, that she is uncertain about the timeline, that she is committed to the people over the metrics — transforms the organizational meaning of not-knowing from stigma to shared condition.
The BRAVING framework provides the relational infrastructure within which daring leadership becomes sustainable. Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, the Vault, Integrity, Non-judgment, and Generosity are not abstract virtues but observable behaviors that leaders either practice or do not. The leader who practices them builds the trust that makes the rest of the work possible. The leader who does not cannot substitute technical competence, strategic acumen, or charismatic performance for the relational foundation that trust provides.
Brown's April 2026 BetterUp research reframed daring leadership as a strategic imperative rather than a humanistic preference. Whether AI improves organizational performance depends less on the quality of the tools than on the quality of the culture around them. Trust is expensive to build; the absence of trust is more expensive still. The organizations that will succeed in the AI transition are not the organizations with the largest AI budgets but the organizations whose leaders practice the daring behaviors that permit AI's amplification to work with their cultures rather than against them.
Origin
The framework was developed through the Dare to Lead™ research and articulated in Brown's 2018 book of the same name. The research drew on interviews with approximately 150 leaders across sectors and was refined through ongoing work with corporate, military, and educational organizations. The AI-specific extensions appeared in Brown's 2025–2026 speaking engagements and her BetterUp partnership.
Key Ideas
Rumble with vulnerability. Lead through the exposure that genuine challenges create rather than performing certainty you cannot earn.
Live into values. Translate abstract values into specific behaviors that can be observed, taught, and held accountable.
BRAVE trust. Build trust through the seven component behaviors of the BRAVING framework.
Learn to rise. Model the rising strong process when failure occurs, turning setbacks into organizational learning.
Go first. Leadership vulnerability signals that the practice is safe and transforms the cultural meaning of not-knowing.
Appears in the Orange Pill Cycle
Further reading
- Brené Brown, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. (Random House, 2018)
- Amy Edmondson, The Fearless Organization (Wiley, 2018)
- Brené Brown and BetterUp, AI and organizational culture research (April 2026)