Daring Greatly

Drawing by Chris Cluff

In August I wrote about a collaboration I wanted to engage in - "Dare to Lead Collaboration - In and Out of the Classroom" - which came from my reading of Brene Brown's book 'Dare to Lead' and her Daring Classrooms initiative. The 'In the Classroom' plan involved working with other educators on ideas and activities that would assist us in providing our students with safer spaces for them to learn and grow. The 'Out of the Classroom' plan involved me working on some of the things Brene talks about in her book that would help me learn more about myself and who I am as a leader, and possibly who I can become as a leader. 

For all intents and purposes, the in the classroom component is coming along nicely. I have established some norms with my students and we are doing well at dealing with our inner critic and thinking about why we armour up when we find ourselves in certain situations. With respect to the outside of the classroom component, I am much more aware of my vulnerabilities and armour but something just isn't right. Even though I am much more aware of my thoughts/feelings and behaviours, I find myself kind of stuck and needing to take a next step.

It is almost as if the universe was feeling my pain and desire to grow when I found out that my school board NTIP Consultant was looking into finding a Dare to Lead facilitator to speak to NTIP mentors and mentees. He was able to make it happen and I was able to attend a Daring Greatly workshop.

The workshop was exactly what I needed. I spent the day learning and talking about the following concepts: 

• vulnerabiltiy
• authenticity
• boundaries
• trust
• empathy
• self-compassion
• shame
• coping

One of the activities had us provide a brief introduction to our arena (the place where we do our work) and what we would like to ask of the group - what they could help us with. My arena is my work place, my ask involved people taking the time to wonder why I would be so quick in putting my armour on in certain situations. 

Around certain people, I will not show my vulnerabilities and I will certainly clam up and keep quiet. In some situations this armoring up that I do could be interpreted as a safety mechanism - a way to protect myself from being judged by others. As the workshop progressed throughout the day I learned more about why I armour up and how I can become more resilient to the shame that causes me to shut down. Many people try to cope with shame by armouring up. People cope with their shame in different ways and I learned more about what I do when I feel shame. More importantly, I learned about what I can do to deal with my shame (my inner critic) in a way that won't cripple me. In a way that allows me to work towards being my best self rather than becoming a lesser version of who I am and what I can be. 

When I think about daring greatly, I think about how it is connected to leadership - particularly my leadership journey. When I consider the Ontario Catholic Leadership Framework I think about the section at the bottom that lists personal leadership resources that leaders draw upon to effectively lead. Cognitive, social, and psychological resources are needed in order to set directions, build relationships and develop people, support desired practices, improve the instructional program, and secure accountability. I would argue that it is necessary and important for leaders and aspiring leaders to continuously work on building up their personal leadership resources. 

For me, part of building up my personal resources means that I continue to work on building up my resilience to shame. At the workshop I learned that building up my shame resilience requires the following:

• recognizing when I'm in shame and understanding what triggered it,
• challenging my inner critic by responding with self-compassion, 
• telling my story and talking about shame with the people who have earned the right to hear it, and
• learning about what I need when I am in shame and how to ask for it

Dealing with my shame won't be easy, but I believe it is necessary. If I don't do it then my shame will get in the way of me stepping into the leadership arena - where at best I will triumph and at worst I will fail - but will have failed while daring greatly.