Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit

In this chapter, Brown revisits the foundational concepts of Dare to Lead, her 2018 book on courage-building in organizational settings, and updates these ideas based on seven years of additional research and implementation experience. The chapter serves as both an introduction for new readers and a progress report for those familiar with the earlier work, reflecting on what has remained constant and what has evolved in the face of significant global changes since 2017.

Brown begins by explaining that her original research with global CEOs revealed unanimous agreement that organizations needed “braver leaders and more courageous cultures.” The CEOs identified ten core challenges that courage could address: avoiding difficult conversations, mismanaging emotions during change, diminishing trust due to lack of empathy, insufficient risk-taking and innovation, becoming defined by failures, excessive shame and blame, avoiding diversity conversations, rushing to ineffective solutions, failing to operationalize organizational values into behaviors, and perfectionism that inhibits learning.

Brown emphasizes that despite profound changes over the past eight years—including a global pandemic, geopolitical instability, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence revolution—these same ten challenges persist in organizations today. This finding validates the durability of her grounded theory approach, which holds that theory must continuously work with new data to remain relevant.