Strong Ground by Brené Brown
“Grounded confidence is a brand of confidence that is built not on arrogance or posturing, but rather on the solid ground of self-awareness, courage and practice.”
3 Main Messages:
There is great power in connection, both of people and of ideas.
Leaders need grounded confidence and courageous humility
Now is the time for deeper self awareness and conscious leadership
Who do you think has scored the most international goals in football? Cristiano Ronaldo? As I write this he has scored 143 International goals for Portugal. While this is impressive, it puts him significantly behind Abby Wambach, who has scored 184 international goals for the USA. And she’s only the second highest goal scorer in the world, behind Christine Sinclair for Canada.
Abby appeared on Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast in 2020 which I listened to while taking one of my many lockdown walks. I then read her book Wolfpack afterwards and many of the lessons have really stuck with me. One of them is about running and pointing when you score. The reason for this, she says, is to “express gratitude and give credit to those who contributed to our own successes.” Brene Brown was obviously listening and learning too because she does this in spades in this book.
Strong Ground came around because of a sporting injury. Brown, in her typical self-deprecating and humorous style, opens the book by telling a story of an injury she sustained while playing her beloved pickleball. Her subsequent physio training gave her the perfect metaphor for team leadership and the title for this book: “Strong ground is the only thing that can provide both unwavering stability in a maelstrom of uncertainty and a platform for the fast, explosive change the world is demanding.”
The message is clear: in a time of turbulence we need “deep collaboration, deep thinking and deep connection”. We need leaders who are mission and values driven and who are held accountable by their teams. We need leaders who “can reconnect to their humanity,” and this book is a guide to how to be a more self-aware, grounded, vulnerable AND strong leader. The lessons in this book are what we need.
Brown taps into her network of collaborators to compile guides and lessons for the reader. You get the impression that these conversations are what allow her to continue learning even as she was writing the book. Chapters include the work of Daniel Pink, Amy Webb, Aiko Bettea, Adam Grant and (of course) Abby Wambach, as well as others; she shares their thinking and connects their messaging with her own.
With an emphasis on always learning, Brown followed up this book with 6 Dare to Lead podcast episodes entitled ‘Finding our Strong Ground’ where she discusses ideas from the book with Adam Grant. She affectionately calls these ‘pausecasts’ because she pauses frequently - you can almost hear her brain whirring - as she untangles and thinks more about what she has written. I love this!
Brown also revisits important and relevant themes and lessons from her previous books, including The Five Cs (context, colour, connective tissue, cost and consequence), Armoured vs Daring Leadership, Empathy Misses from Atlas of the Heart, BRAVING Trust, and the Engaged Feedback Checklist, amongst others. By collecting all of these tools in one place, it means that Strong Ground provides all the necessary lessons for strong leadership, from her previous work and from the work of others.
There is also a chapter included about the above and below the line practice. It comes from David Emerald’s 2005 Empowerment Dynamic, aligning with Stephen Karpman’s model of the Drama Triangle and is the basis of the Conscious Leadership Movement, led by Jim Dethmer and team: perhaps one of the most powerful pieces of a leader’s toolkit.
Along with sports metaphors aplenty, stories, conversations, quotes, and a huge dollop of fun, this is a must read for leaders in all fields - sporting and other! We read, learn and laugh alongside Brown as she runs and points at both her own back catalogue and the work of brilliant thought leaders. She writes that “The future belongs to those who passionately seek understanding and learning, and who enjoy it.” Brené Brown clearly does!
