The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant
Courageous Leadership as a Daily Practice
25 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, everyone. It's Brene, and we are on a summer hiatus for the next five weeks. While we're taking a break, we are revisiting some conversations that we really love. We think you're going to enjoy them. This week's episode is a conversation that Adam and I had at Authors at Wharton. It first aired on his podcast, Rethinking. I hope you enjoy it.
You'll see a couple of times he's got me on the hot seat. I got a real good taste of what it's going to be like to be in his classroom. He tried to drill me down, but fear not, I drilled back. Enjoy.
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Welcome to the Curiosity Shop, a show from the Fox Media Podcast Network.
If you do not care for and are able to connect with the people you lead, you will never see performance, period.
Hey, everyone. It's Adam Graham. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. Brene Brown is a researcher and storyteller who's changed the way I think about vulnerability, shame, empathy, and leadership.
She hosts the podcast Dare to Lead, where I've loved being a recurring guest. She's given some of the most popular TED Talks of all time and written six number one New York Times bestselling books. I hosted Brene for a live conversation in the Authors at Wharton series to talk about her brand new book, Strong Ground. Brene Brown, so excited to have you at Wharton.
Thank you. Nice to be here.
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Chapter 2: How does Brené Brown redefine courage in leadership?
If you sit up straight in bed at four o'clock in the morning, what are you worried about? And then that's what I'm trying to resolve. Yes, I'm listening to investor calls and yes, I'm looking at data, performance data and engagement data. But what I really want to know is what is keeping you up at night and how do we go after that?
I would say the typical CEO I encounter is not that excited to talk about the thing that they're stressed about. How do you break through that barrier?
Fifth generation Texan. You know, why am I here? If you don't want to talk about it, I got shit to do and places to be so we can either talk about it or I can go home. You know, like I don't get it. But I think for me, I often talk about playing to win versus playing not to lose.
I'm not everybody's cup of tea, as you can imagine, but I just say, look, what's more important to you, to protect your ego or to win? And if you wanna win, we're gonna have to have these hard conversations. And if you can't have these hard conversations and you continue to play not to lose, let me tell you what that looks like both on a field and in an organization.
Playing not to lose is always losing.
How do you adapt that to the MBA and undergrad students in the room? So it's harder for them to go to their boss or their boss's boss and say, hey, do you want to succeed here or do you want to protect your fragile ego?
I would definitely send that via text. I think the strategy is actually the same. And I was talking to a recent MBA graduate at UT at McCombs. McCombs has a big program for vets who want to come back and get their MBA. And we were talking about how care for and connection with the people you lead is an irreducible prerequisite of courageous leadership.
If you do not care for and are able to connect with the people you lead, you will never see performance, period. You might do well in a very short period of time, but we both know. Like, without genuine care for and connection with, you don't. And so he asked this question.
He said, you know, I come from a setting in the military where caring for and connecting to is a fairly low bar, which I think is true because we both do work in the military. Like, even the Air Force has, without deep affection for the troops you lead, we will move the soldier or we will move you. And so he said, that's how I lead, but it's not accepted by my boss or the senior leaders.
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Chapter 3: What are the four skill sets of courageous leadership?
Okay, but you're really good at doing this.
Thank you, Brene. You're welcome. Brene told me I was bad at accepting compliments, and a lot of people have given me that feedback. And I take pride in being someone who takes feedback well. And now I'm stuck. I have to say thank you.
There's so many things to compliment you about.
Enough, okay, so.
Okay, I was doing work with the FBI hostage negotiators because a lot of their work is about emotional resonance, understanding emotion, right? If I had to give one takeaway from Chris's work that I think is really helpful, it's this. Whether hostages or the hostage taker, whether they live or die, often comes down to two words.
You're the hostage taker, and I'm the negotiator for the FBI, and you're telling me what's going on. I'm like, shit, okay, so let me get this right, Adam. You can never get a fucking break. They took your kids, your wife left you, they shit on you at your job, and nothing ever goes your way no matter how hard you work. And if you say back to me two words, that's right.
there is a connection now that changes all of the variables about survival. It's a human being, like we are neurobiologically hardwired to be seen and heard, and that's right, is really a big part of being able to play back. So what's missing for, I think, new MBA students, new business students in general, just younger leaders, new people leaders, is the playback.
So if I say to Adam, so all you really care about, Adam, is me reducing churn. And Adam goes, no, reducing churn is part of a three-legged stool. I need you to churn, but we have got to have growth. We have to have ARR for three quarters that looks like this. So that part is missing when you're managing up. Does that make sense? It's a really big part of getting clarity.
I hear you, I can play back for you accurately what's happening.
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Chapter 4: How can values be operationalized into behaviors?
So to me, I want a meaningful life and I'm gonna have to be brave to do that.
Why do you care about having a meaningful life?
I'd be failing this fucking class. Because what's the point if you're not? Wow, that was hard.
It's supposed to be hard. But when somebody has a long list of values, we pick a value, and we go through the why, why, why process. And eventually, they just kind of throw up their hands and say, because that's who I am, or because that's important to me, or because otherwise, what's the point? And at that point, I know we've reached a terminal as opposed to instrumental value.
So many of our values are in service of other values. The terminal values are, no, this is core. So I think you landed courage as a core value.
I see you, Adam Grant.
What does that mean?
It was irritating but effective.
Okay, so then to your point, yeah, it is annoying. I think it has more comedic effect if you do it this way, but it's much friendlier when it's like, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more about why that's important to you. We want to then go the other way and say, how? How do you live that value? And that's where you get to your behavioral standards.
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Chapter 5: What is the 'story I'm making up' framework?
And I was like, let's go. As the only woman at the table for a long time, early in my career, I have zero interest in looking, acting, behaving like the people who built the tables that I'm not supposed to be at. Yeah, none.
What is something you've changed your mind about lately?
I can get really ramped up about my founder energy and get really proud of it. Like, yeah, fuck you. I'm going to pick all the fonts. I'm going to check all the emails. And then I'm going to cry for six hours, get in a fight with my husband and not get out of bed because I'm going to check all the emails and pick all the fonts. And so I'm really changing my mind about where those lines exist.
It sounds like you should read a book called The Gifts of Imperfection.
And then I'm going to rethink our friendship narrative.
Ouch. No, I actually think it needs a sequel about delegation and micromanagement and control, which I think is an extension of perfectionism.
It is. And the thing that I wrote myself, like, have you ever written anything? And then you're like, eat the page yourself, dumbass. Like, tear this page out and just eat the page you wrote.
No, I've never thought about it that way. But in tech, they call it eating your own dog food, right?
Is that? I don't know.
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Chapter 6: How do you build trust and connection as a leader?
And I'm not a good public person. I never wanted to be a public person. And so I can get very fearful and scarcity based. Yeah. And then I'm not good in those places.
Welcome to the club. Yeah. All right. If you were dropped back to your freshman year of college, with all the knowledge and wisdom you've accumulated since then, what would be the first thing you would change?
I would just tell myself that there's no shame in this traditional path not being my path. Because I graduated with my undergrad at 29. I got kicked out of school three times. I hitchhiked. I bartended. I did a lot of things where I learned way more about empathy than studying it. And I think I would just look back and say, nothing wasted.
Wow.
Yeah.
How do you balance setting boundaries versus always being there for a friend or even someone who takes advantage of your kindness?
I think there's two different groups of people because I don't think friends take advantage of our kindness. And I think you really have to start with self-examination. But I think for a long time, I thought the only value I brought to relationships was the problem solver, the fixer, the taking care of things. I'm the oldest daughter of four. I have all that set up.
And so I think it starts with... It's really good, despite what a lot of weird people are saying right now, it's really good to be an empathetic person. One, make sure that that's cognitive empathy, not affective empathy, meaning you don't want to feel what everyone feels. That's a recipe for disaster and burnout.
And it's also the word that I would call it as someone, I've been sober for 28 years, we would call it enmeshment. This is not empathy. because I don't know where I end and you begin. So I would really do a lot of self-reflecting around a relationship, a good friendship, love, friendship, whatever is reciprocal.
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