Brené Brown & Reid Hoffman on the skills every leader needs now | Masters of Scale Summit 2025

Brené Brown 0:00 In this environment, given the political instability, technology, changing markets, I think the number one job outside of self-awareness of a leader today is to create time where none exists. Our research shows that adults in this country can name and accurately identify about three emotions, happy, sad, and pissed off.

Reid Hoffman 0:26 [laughs]

Brené Brown 0:27 And we think there are about 85 to 90 that are important-

Reid Hoffman 0:31 Really?

Brené Brown 0:31 ... for emotional granularity.

Reid Hoffman 0:32 I'll say that's sad.

Brené Brown 0:33 Cognitive empathy is not only the source code for relationships, it's the source code of democracy, period.

Speaker 0:44 Hi, folks. This week on the show, Reid Hoffman's conversation with bestselling author and researcher, the phenomenal Brené Brown. She joined us on stage last week at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, where Brené and Reid had an inspiring and action-oriented conversation about courageous leadership. I hope you enjoy it.

Reid Hoffman 1:09 This is Masters of Scale.

Brené Brown 1:14 Hi.

Reid Hoffman 1:14 [laughs] Clearly you have some fans here already. [laughs]

Brené Brown 1:19 I like it.

Brené Brown 1:21 Hi.

Reid Hoffman 1:21 You have a new book out-

Brené Brown 1:22 I do

Reid Hoffman 1:23 ... called Strong Ground, which explores many aspects of what you call, and what should be called, courageous leadership. So what is courageous leadership?

Brené Brown 1:34 Well, I heard the word humility during the introduction, and to me courageous leadership is a combination of a deep awareness of who you are and leading with discipline and accountability and humility. It's about understanding that to lead is to serve others and not be served. Um, and it's... I think it's probably rooted in every- in, above everything else, self-awareness about who you are and how you're showing up, um, probably undergirds all of it.

Reid Hoffman 2:07 And, and, and what are some of, kind of like the habits, principles, ways that you, you kind of, uh, help people understand are they exhibiting it? What kinds of ways to build into it? What, what are some of the things that... Because obviously it's the right aspiration-

Brené Brown 2:23 Yeah

Reid Hoffman 2:23 ... for everyone to, to get to courageous leadership, but it isn't just a slogan.

Brené Brown 2:27 No.

Reid Hoffman 2:27 It's actually a, a way of being.

Brené Brown 2:30 Yeah, it's interesting. I think the biggest finding possibly of my career has been that the... that courage is teachable, measurable, and observable. It's a skill set that's made up of four things. The ability to be very clear about your values and to assess whether you're behaving in a way that's aligned with them. It's one thing to have values, it's another thing to operationalize them, and then hold yourself and your organization accountable for them. The second is the ability to stay in your integrity and vulnerability. Vulnerability is very simply uncertainty, risk, and exposure, so all of us are in it every day, all day. And the ability to know when you're in it and to not reach for armor. So the big... The way... Where I was wrong, I hypothesized early on that the biggest barrier to courageous leadership was fear.

Reid Hoffman 3:19 Oh.

Brené Brown 3:20 And when we went back to some of the leaders we were studying, they literally said some version of this to us. "If you're gonna make a list of brave leaders who are never afraid, don't put me on the list. I'm afraid every day."

Reid Hoffman 3:31 Uh-huh.

Brené Brown 3:32 And I was like, "Well, if it's not fear, what gets in the way of courage?" Armor. It's how we self-protect when we're afraid that's usually out of our awareness. So one of the things we do with leaders is, "What's your go-to armor?"

Reid Hoffman 3:45 Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 3:45 Mine is terrible. Mine is perfectionism, micromanagement. I also get super decisive.

Reid Hoffman 3:52 Oh.

Brené Brown 3:53 That's my armor. So I'll be-

Reid Hoffman 3:54 Oh, interesting

Brené Brown 3:54 ... I'll be in a meeting and... Yeah, I won't get-

Reid Hoffman 3:56 Yeah

Brené Brown 3:56 ... paralyzed.

Reid Hoffman 3:57 Yeah.

Brené Brown 3:57 I'll be in a meeting and I'll be like, "Shut it down. No. Move the team."

Reid Hoffman 4:00 [laughs]

Brené Brown 4:01 "Change the money. We're not doing this."

Reid Hoffman 4:03 [laughs]

Brené Brown 4:03 And then I'll look up and I'll be like, "Oh, [beep] . I don't, I don't know that these are good decisions." And literally the last time I did that, my team looked back at me and said, "We never write anything down when you're acting like this."

Reid Hoffman 4:14 [laughs]

Speaker 4:18 [laughs]

Brené Brown 4:18 I was like, "Wait, what?" And they're like, "This is a... This is your armor."

Reid Hoffman 4:22 Yeah.

Brené Brown 4:23 And I was like, "That is my armor. I get overly decisive." And so for us to be courageous, we have to know the very human ways that we self-protect when we're afraid.

Reid Hoffman 4:33 Yeah. What's some of the ways to kinda discover that armor and, and, and learn how to disarmor yourself?

Brené Brown 4:41 So I think most of us know. I mean, if you wanna ask someone, I wouldn't ask someone that works for you.

Reid Hoffman 4:47 [laughs] Yeah.

Brené Brown 4:48 Um, 'cause there's a power differential there-

Reid Hoffman 4:49 [laughs]

Brené Brown 4:50 ... that could make it super cringey for that person, um, to describe exactly how you're an asshole.

Reid Hoffman 4:55 Yeah. Tell, tell me how good I is exactly. [laughs]

Brené Brown 4:56 Yeah. Um, what form of assholeness do I, do I default to-

Reid Hoffman 5:00 Yes

Brené Brown 5:00 ... when I'm afraid? 'Cause they'll, they'll be able to tell you for sure.

Reid Hoffman 5:02 [laughs] Yes.

Brené Brown 5:03 Um-

Reid Hoffman 5:03 Well, they, they could tell you, but... [laughs]

Brené Brown 5:05 They... Right. But they may smartly say, "I don't know."

Reid Hoffman 5:08 Yes. [laughs]

Brené Brown 5:09 "Uh, I've never seen it."

Reid Hoffman 5:09 It's when you're too perfectionistic.

Brené Brown 5:11 Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Reid Hoffman 5:11 Yes.

Brené Brown 5:11 Yeah.

Reid Hoffman 5:11 Yes.

Brené Brown 5:12 Oh.

Reid Hoffman 5:12 Yes, yes.

Brené Brown 5:12 No, not the-

Reid Hoffman 5:13 Yeah. [laughs]

Brené Brown 5:13 ... perfectionism.

Reid Hoffman 5:14 Yes.

Brené Brown 5:15 Like, "What's your, what's your weakness?" "Perfectionism."

Reid Hoffman 5:17 Yeah.

Brené Brown 5:17 "Everything I do is very good."

Reid Hoffman 5:18 Yes. [laughs]

Speaker 5:20 [laughs]

Brené Brown 5:21 Um, yeah, and that's not how it shows up for me. Perfectionism is like, maybe a month ago, I, I gave the packing parachute speech-

Reid Hoffman 5:28 Oh

Brené Brown 5:28 ... from like 1994. "We're packing parachutes. 100% matters. Do you wanna jump out of a plane with a parachute that was packed at 90% excellence?"

Speaker 5:37 [laughs]

Brené Brown 5:38 People die. And I think we were talking about a font choice.

Reid Hoffman 5:41 [laughs]

Speaker 5:42 [laughs]

Brené Brown 5:42 Um, s-

Reid Hoffman 5:45 You know-

Brené Brown 5:45 A parachute font coming soon to you.

Reid Hoffman 5:47 A parachute font. Don't get this wrong.

Brené Brown 5:49 [laughs]

Reid Hoffman 5:49 People will die.

Brené Brown 5:50 [laughs] Yeah.

Reid Hoffman 5:50 Um, this is all like a founder problem.

Brené Brown 5:54 Yes, yes.

Reid Hoffman 5:54 But I have a therapist and a coach. I'm working on it. Um-

Brené Brown 5:56 [laughs]

Reid Hoffman 5:57 But I think you, you probably know. Like raise your hand if you could think about how you self-protect when you're in fear or uncertainty. I think you know.

Brené Brown 6:06 And I don't think you normally have to ask other people, and if you, and if you don't have the insight or the courage to think about it, I question the sanity of you leading people.

Reid Hoffman 6:18 Yeah. Yeah.

Brené Brown 6:19 To be honest with you. Because who we are is how we lead, and if you're not willing to have the humility to look into can I... I... You know, can I get scary when I'm scared?

Reid Hoffman 6:29 Yeah.

Brené Brown 6:31 And I think a lot of us can. I can.

Reid Hoffman 6:33 Yeah, no. It's, uh, classic. So-

Brené Brown 6:36 It's classic.

Reid Hoffman 6:36 [laughs] Yes.

Brené Brown 6:37 I'm a legend.

Reid Hoffman 6:37 [laughs] Yes. Um,

Reid Hoffman 6:39 so, you know, you, you have the... You do intense research. You meet a lot of great CEOs. Um, probably meet a lot of not great CEOs. Um, and, um, you know, kind of, I'd say probably over the last decade or two, there was kind of more generally saying, hey, CEOs should be more empathetic, you know, kind of softer, et cetera, and it seems to be going somewhat the other direction now.

Brené Brown 7:04 Mm.

Reid Hoffman 7:04 Um, now sometimes people might describe that accurately as testosterone poisoning-

Brené Brown 7:09 Yeah

Reid Hoffman 7:09 ... which we have a certain amount of. Um, but the... What are you seeing in this pattern of what kind of environments are CEOs operating in, and what's the way to maintain kind of a true north for themselves, their organizations, their culture? Like, what are, w- what are the, what are the forces that are acting against it, and what are the ways to navigate it?

Brené Brown 7:32 Yeah, I feel really lucky because I, I actually go to work every day. I spend probably 90% of my time working with C-suite and then the dir- the level of direct reports under the C-suite. And I am... I'm so optimistic in many ways because when you stop scrolling, and you turn off the news, and you're just sitting with people in a room, you see a lot of great people who wake up every day and are committed to doing the next right thing regardless of what's in the zeitgeist right now, and I feel, like, that makes me very optimistic. I think in terms of the cultural push against empathy, I have one of two thoughts on... I have two thoughts on that. One is, one is just honest. Look, if my plan, if my leadership plan includes hurting people, especially vulnerable populations, I'm going to be against vulnerabi- I'm gonna be against empathy. I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna di- diminish and devalue empathy if part of my plan is to be hurtful because I don't need your pushback and your resistance. So that's one. The second thing is empathy is very nuanced.

Reid Hoffman 8:46 Mm.

Brené Brown 8:46 And so it's easy to grab the parts of empathy that are actually not very helpful.

Reid Hoffman 8:50 Mm.

Brené Brown 8:50 So there are two types of empathy. There's cognitive empathy and affective empathy. So if you call me, and you're like, "Hey, Brené, I'm really having a hard time," and I say, "Tell me what's going on," and you tell me what's going on, and I reflect back and say, "God, that sounds, like, incredibly disappointing."

Reid Hoffman 9:07 Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 9:08 And we have a conversation, and you feel seen and heard and believed. That empathy, that cognitive empathy, is not only the source code for relationships.

Reid Hoffman 9:20 Mm.

Brené Brown 9:20 It's the source code of democracy.

Reid Hoffman 9:22 Mm.

Brené Brown 9:23 Period.

Reid Hoffman 9:24 Mm.

Brené Brown 9:25 Affective empathy is you call me, and I say, "What's going on?" And you describe what's going on, and then I feel it with you.

Reid Hoffman 9:32 Mm-hmm, yep.

Brené Brown 9:33 That's not helpful. That leads to burnout. It actually minimizes compassion. So I think we have to get really clear on what's healthy empathy and what is not.

Reid Hoffman 9:43 Mm.

Brené Brown 9:44 But large, sweeping statements about empathy as the end of Western civilization by people who don't understand it and are also doing, doing really dangerous [beep] to groups of people-

Reid Hoffman 9:54 Yeah

Brené Brown 9:55 ... don't mean anything to me-

Reid Hoffman 9:56 Yeah

Brené Brown 9:56 ... personally.

Reid Hoffman 9:57 Hundred percent.

Brené Brown 9:58 Yeah. 'Cause... I, I, I get why it would be convenient if I stopped caring.

Reid Hoffman 10:04 [laughs] Yeah.

Brené Brown 10:04 Not gonna happen.

Reid Hoffman 10:05 Yeah, exactly. Um, and, and a lot of how you describe cognitive empathy for me is how I think about compassion. So how do you think about the difference in cognitive empathy and compassion?

Brené Brown 10:15 Oh, God, it's so interesting from a research perspective.

Reid Hoffman 10:18 Yeah.

Brené Brown 10:18 So compassion is... Compassion is so brave. Compassion is the willingness to walk through the world and accept that there's going to be suffering-

Reid Hoffman 10:30 Mm

Brené Brown 10:30 ... and that when you see it, you're willing to do something about it.

Reid Hoffman 10:33 Mm.

Brené Brown 10:33 That's compassion.

Reid Hoffman 10:35 Mm.

Brené Brown 10:35 That I am gonna move through the world and accept that there's suffering, mine and yours-

Reid Hoffman 10:42 Mm

Brené Brown 10:42 ... and when I see it, I'll be moved to do something about it. Empathy is a tool of compassion.

Reid Hoffman 10:47 Mm.

Brené Brown 10:47 It's a, it's a teachable tool. It's a hard thing to teach. Like, I, I've taught in a graduate college of social work for two decades, and, like, when we teach empathy, you know, there, it's like role play.

Reid Hoffman 10:56 Yes. [laughs]

Brené Brown 10:56 So you're like, "Oh, Mr. Smith-

Reid Hoffman 10:58 [laughs]

Brené Brown 11:00 ... you must be feeling-

Reid Hoffman 11:01 [laughs]

Brené Brown 11:03 ... super betrayed."

Reid Hoffman 11:05 [laughs] Yes.

Brené Brown 11:06 Right. Yeah.

Reid Hoffman 11:07 [laughs]

Brené Brown 11:07 And then Mr. Smith in- inevitably will say, "No, I'm not really." "Okay."

Reid Hoffman 11:11 [laughs]

Brené Brown 11:13 "Sad?"

Reid Hoffman 11:14 [laughs]

Brené Brown 11:14 You know, it, it's hard because really good empathy requires emotional granularity. It requires the ability to have a pretty robust emotional lexicon-

Reid Hoffman 11:26 Yep

Brené Brown 11:26 ... which is hard because our research shows that adults in this country can name and accurately identify about three emotions, happy, sad, and pissed off.

Reid Hoffman 11:38 [laughs]

Brené Brown 11:39 And we think there are about 85 to 90 that are important for-

Reid Hoffman 11:43 But-

Brené Brown 11:43 ... emotional granularity.

Reid Hoffman 11:44 I'll say that's sad. But that's okay. [laughs]

Brené Brown 11:45 Yeah, no, that's sad. It's, uh, pissing me off.

Reid Hoffman 11:49 Yes, exactly.

Brené Brown 11:50 But, but imagine-

Reid Hoffman 11:50 But I'm not happy about it. [laughs]

Brené Brown 11:51 But you're not happy. Like, you get three buckets.

Reid Hoffman 11:54 Yes.

Brené Brown 11:54 Pick one.

Reid Hoffman 11:55 Yes.

Brené Brown 11:55 But imagine, like, reducing everything that we experience in life to three buckets, and neurolinguistics would tell us that the ability to access language that accurately reflects what we're feeling is so important to the human experience, which is why three buckets are not enough because it doesn't include awe, wonder- Disappointment, grief, anguish, things that really define the human spirit.

Reid Hoffman 12:23 In the classwork and the students, do you actually run through the entire emotional gamut? 'Cause I could see that being stunningly important in leadership education to just say, "Let's actually expand your experience of emotional vocabulary," because actually, in fact, if you don't have that kind of sensibility, you can't be compassionate, you can't have cognitive empathy, et cetera. You know, and, and the ability to understand, like, I have regret and, you know, and other kind of... Like, it just... It's what are those things? Do you, do you run through the... Ah, awesome.

Brené Brown 12:56 We do. We have. We do, and they pick two or three that they wanna learn more about-

Reid Hoffman 13:02 Yeah

Brené Brown 13:02 ... that they think would make them stronger leaders, uh, in their organization. And again, I'm usually at the C-suite level.

Reid Hoffman 13:08 Yeah.

Brené Brown 13:08 So they're picking... They're often picking emotions that are preventing their team for getting, getting back on their feet-

Reid Hoffman 13:17 Yeah

Brené Brown 13:17 ... after a failure, disappointment, and setback.

Reid Hoffman 13:20 Yeah.

Brené Brown 13:20 'Cause one of the things that you see, especially among CEOs today, is when there's a... Not, not, not if, but when there's a failure and a setback and a disappointment, I need everybody on my team to be responsible for their own bounce. I need everybody to get back up on their own because I cannot both correct what's happening-

Reid Hoffman 13:41 Hmm

Brené Brown 13:41 ... and remind you of your value. I need everybody up on their own. And so in order to get back up-

Reid Hoffman 13:48 Hmm

Brené Brown 13:48 ... we have to understand the whole collection of emotions that we're feeling.

Reid Hoffman 13:52 Yeah. No, exactly. It, it sounds like, like there's this, there's this concept within, you know, kind of, uh, health things of, like, cognitive reserve and, and, uh, you know, motion reserve. Um, emotion reserve-

Brené Brown 14:06 Yes

Reid Hoffman 14:06 ... actually strikes me as a really interesting thing-

Brené Brown 14:08 Huge

Reid Hoffman 14:09 ... to be building resilience in.

Brené Brown 14:10 I mean, I hate this 'cause it rhymes, so it makes it seem less important.

Reid Hoffman 14:15 Hmm.

Brené Brown 14:16 But there is something that therapists often say, which is, "If you can't name it, you can't tame it."

Reid Hoffman 14:20 Yeah.

Brené Brown 14:21 If you can't accurately name what you're experiencing, it's very difficult to move through it.

Reid Hoffman 14:27 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brené Brown 14:29 When we were doing Strong Ground research, we wanted to come up with kind of what does the future of leadership look like in terms of actionable skill sets. Emotional granularity ended up in the top five.

Reid Hoffman 14:41 Yeah. So and the other four?

Brené Brown 14:44 Self-awareness. One that I cannot believe has fallen to the wayside that I see less and less in senior leaders today, systems thinking.

Reid Hoffman 14:53 Huh.

Brené Brown 14:54 The ability to think in terms of systems-

Reid Hoffman 14:57 Yeah

Brené Brown 14:57 ... which is really scary because if you're familiar with systems theory, you know that a, the prerequisite for a healthy system is permeable boundaries-

Reid Hoffman 15:06 Hmm

Brené Brown 15:06 ... where good data and feedback can flow in and out pretty freely. What is not... Especially with AI, what's interesting... [laughs] Oh, you got the excited face. [laughs] Um, what I think is interesting is when a team or an organization loses the permeability of the boundaries-

Reid Hoffman 15:25 Hmm

Brené Brown 15:25 ... they're not bringing in external and feedback or internal feedback consistently. Boundaries get closed. Two things happen to a system, whether we're talking about a cell or a, or a, a tech team.

Reid Hoffman 15:36 Hmm.

Brené Brown 15:36 You become a self-referencing system. And so what you end up doing is, "Are we good?" "No, we're great." "Do we need to know more?" "No, we know everything." Um, and this is the death right now that we're, you know, the MIT Sloan-

Reid Hoffman 15:50 Yes

Brené Brown 15:50 ... research that just came out. Q4 2023, one-- Q1 and 2 2024, investments in AI, 90% failure, no return on investment.

Reid Hoffman 16:02 Hmm.

Brené Brown 16:03 And a lot of that is because of self-referencing systems. Like, you have to have the courage to say, "In this environment, I know very little."

Reid Hoffman 16:14 Hmm.

Brené Brown 16:14 "I know very little."

Reid Hoffman 16:17 Yeah. Exactly. Well, like, in, in times of disruption, uh, people try to persuade themselves it's all under control, it's something that's controllable, that it isn't, there is an inherent risk. And it's like, no, no, we're moving through times of disruption.

Brené Brown 16:30 Right.

Reid Hoffman 16:31 You need to have a different stance towards it, and not just you as an individual, but you as a leader, you as a team, et cetera. And that's part of the reason why there's resilience, because it'll be bumpy.

Brené Brown 16:42 Oh, it's so bumpy.

Reid Hoffman 16:43 Yes.

Brené Brown 16:44 It's, it's so bumpy. And one of the things, i- if... How many of you, I can... can't see y'all, but how many of you have ever watched five-year-olds play football? Uh, soccer, sorry.

Reid Hoffman 16:53 [laughs]

Brené Brown 16:54 Soccer. Yeah. Okay. I'm a big Liverpool fan, so I've converted to football.

Reid Hoffman 16:58 [laughs]

Brené Brown 16:58 Um, although it's not going well for me right now. Um-

Reid Hoffman 17:01 [laughs]

Brené Brown 17:02 ... we have a midfield problem. But when five-year-olds play soccer and the ball comes in hard and fast, head height, what a five-year-old does is put their foot up head height-

Reid Hoffman 17:15 [laughs]

Brené Brown 17:15 ... and they try to kick the ball. And of course, it goes off the pitch, into the pitch next door. As soccer players get more experience, what they end up doing when the ball comes in really high and fast is they take the ball into their chest. The ball drops to the ground. They put their foot on the ball to maintain possession, 'cause the game's all about possession. They look down the pitch. They think about operationally, where is the ball? Where is the... Not where is the striker right now, but where is the striker going to be? And they kick the ball to where the striker is going to be. And that set of skills is what's missing right now. You have CEOs and C-suite leaders kicking the ball at head height as hard as they can, not bringing the ball into their chest-

Reid Hoffman 17:56 Hmm

Brené Brown 17:56 ... settling the ball-

Reid Hoffman 17:57 Hmm

Brené Brown 17:57 ... taking a breath, looking strategically down the pitch.

Reid Hoffman 18:00 Hmm.

Brené Brown 18:01 And the CEOs that I'm working with around AI that are settling the ball are coming out of their skin every day.

Reid Hoffman 18:07 Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 18:08 You know, they're saying, "I'm trying to settle the ball. I'm trying to take a breath."

Reid Hoffman 18:13 Hmm.

Brené Brown 18:13 "I'm trying to make sure that my AI strategies align with my business strategy." And I'm trying to make sure that my budget line for bringing the humans along-

Speaker 18:21 Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 18:22 -is also substantial.

Speaker 18:23 Mm.

Brené Brown 18:24 But I'm scared [beep] less because everyone else is moving so fast-

Speaker 18:28 Mm.

Brené Brown 18:28 -that I don't feel like I have time to settle the ball or look down the pitch.

Speaker 18:33 Yep. And what do you, what do you say when you're confronted with that? Like, "I don't have time. I just need to do this." What, what's the, what's the way to help them? 'Cause obviously, the, the game is moving very fast.

Brené Brown 18:45 Yeah.

Speaker 18:45 I'm, I'm actually very interested in the kind of the question of, like, AI is obviously on everyone's minds.

Brené Brown 18:52 Right.

Speaker 18:52 How it integrates their lives, their organization's lives, their work's lives, et cetera. What's some of the, the work that you've been doing and lesson to say, "Hey, here are some principles to deal with this very chaotic, fast-moving game"?

Brené Brown 19:08 I think the first thing is I so respect a leader who has the self-awareness to say, "I'm trying to pause and be strategic and thoughtful, and I'm coming out of my skin."

Speaker 19:20 Hmm.

Brené Brown 19:20 The first thing I would tell you is anyone that has the, the self-awareness to say that immediately gains my confidence.

Speaker 19:27 Yep.

Brené Brown 19:27 Because so much of what's happening in terms of the world today is happening outside of the awareness of very senior leaders.

Speaker 19:35 Yep.

Brené Brown 19:36 They are looking at, you know... When a lead... I mean, this is a call that I had yesterday about relocating supply chain because of tariffs, and the leader just kept saying, "We need to move fast." What we're looking for, and this is tricky.

Speaker 19:52 Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 19:52 I'll be curious about what you think about this.

Speaker 19:54 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 19:54 I wanna see urgency. I want productive urgency.

Speaker 19:58 Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 19:59 I wanna see risk-taking. I wanna see strategic risk-taking.

Speaker 20:03 Hmm.

Brené Brown 20:03 It is the job of a leader today in this environment, given the political instability, technology, changing markets, I think the number one job outside of self-awareness of a leader today is to create time where none exists.

Speaker 20:19 Mm-hmm. Yep.

Brené Brown 20:21 Create time where none exists. And so to understand that better, I had to turn to sport.

Speaker 20:27 Hmm. [laughs]

Brené Brown 20:29 Damn it. Um, there are so many sports metaphors.

Speaker 20:31 [laughs]

Brené Brown 20:31 Literally, the question I got from The Wall Street Journal is, "Did you feel comfortable putting a chapter around Jon Keats next to a chapter called The Tush Push?"

Speaker 20:40 [laughs]

Speaker 20:41 [laughs]

Brené Brown 20:42 And I was like, "Yeah, dude, why?"

Speaker 20:45 [laughs]

Brené Brown 20:45 Like, I'm like, "Do you like poetry?" And he's like, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Do you like football?" And he's like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Shut it."

Speaker 20:50 [laughs]

Brené Brown 20:51 I'm like, "Yeah." Like, like, we, we're, we're, we, we can do both. But if you turn to sports and you look at really talented athletes-

Speaker 20:58 Hmm.

Brené Brown 20:58 -it looks like they're slowing down the ball-

Speaker 21:01 Hmm.

Brené Brown 21:02 -in play.

Speaker 21:03 Yeah.

Brené Brown 21:03 But they're actually not creating more time between a serve and a return or a kick. What they're doing, and I think this is the future of leadership, is a very complex skill set-

Speaker 21:15 Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 21:16 -of anticipatory awareness-

Speaker 21:18 Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 21:18 -temporal awareness, and situational awareness.

Speaker 21:23 Mm-hmm. Yep.

Brené Brown 21:25 So the leaders today are understanding how to read what they can't see. In football, we'd call it pocket presence. Like, a quarterback-

Speaker 21:37 Oh, right.

Brené Brown 21:37 -gets a snap, breaks back, he has three seconds to figure out how to move the ball down.

Speaker 21:42 Yep.

Brené Brown 21:43 But it's a very complex group of skills that he has with his team-

Speaker 21:47 Hmm.

Brené Brown 21:48 -around being able to see-- to be able to read a field you can't see.

Speaker 21:53 Mm-hmm.

Brené Brown 21:53 So the question I have for a lot of senior leaders is: Where are you on anticipatory awareness?

Speaker 21:58 Yeah.

Brené Brown 21:58 Where are you in systems thinking?

Speaker 22:00 Yep.

Brené Brown 22:00 In structure... You know, like, these are the deep thinking skills moving forward.

Speaker 22:05 Yeah. I completely agree, and part of it is to realize that while it's moving very fast and you cannot create more time, your fitness function is not response at speed. Your fitness function is intelligent response at speed, right?

Brené Brown 22:24 A hundred... I mean-

Speaker 22:25 Yeah.

Brené Brown 22:26 This, this is what an intelligence respo-- or intelligent response at speed. That's the difference between urgency and productive urgency.

Speaker 22:34 Yeah.

Brené Brown 22:34 Between risk-taking and strategic risk-taking. Every, every CEO is saying, "I need more risk-taking." That, that's like I, I was interviewing someone the other day, and she said, "No, I'm a get [beep] done. A G-- I'm a GSD kind of person." And I was like, "That I don't need."

Speaker 22:50 [laughs]

Brené Brown 22:51 "What I actually need is a GSSD, get strategic [beep] done."

Speaker 22:54 Yes.

Brené Brown 22:55 Because what you're seeing right now, and I'm curious if you're seeing this, you're seeing action over impact.

Speaker 23:02 Depends on, depends on the leader. It does definitely happen. Um, and, um, uh, obviously we've introduced, like, five to seven questions that we could go on for the next thirty minutes.

Brené Brown 23:14 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 23:14 But the clock just ran out. [laughs]

Brené Brown 23:16 Oh, we're out of time. It takes me twenty-five minutes to order a sandwich-

Speaker 23:19 Yeah. [laughs]

Brené Brown 23:19 -so we did pretty, we did pretty good.

Speaker 23:21 Yes. So as you can see, amazing. Thanks, Brené.

Brené Brown 23:25 Thank y'all so much.

Speaker 23:26 [clapping]

Brené Brown 23:27 Thank you.

Speaker 23:35 Thanks again to Brené Brown for joining us at the Masters of Scale Summit. Her new book is Strong Ground, and we'll put a link in the show notes. And while I have you, just a deep, deep thanks to everyone who came to Summit. Not just those who appeared on stage, but who were in the community, in conversation, looking for ways to build a better future. We're so grateful to all of you, and we're excited to see you back in San Francisco next year. [outro music]