A deep dive into the learnings of Dare to Lead™

In 2022, Elinor, a Public Servant for the ACT Government, attended the Hatchery’s Dare to Lead Masterclass facilitated by Michelle Holland, and in a recent interview with the Hatchery, was happy to share some candid feedback about her experience. 

Why did you attend the dare to lead course?
A lot of my colleagues had been going to the Hatchery’s courses and were really enjoying them, which gave me the confidence to trust in the course’s content and delivery. However, on a more personal note, I had been doing some resilience training at the time and was looking for something a little different from the leadership training ‘norm’ and something complimentary to the resilience work and when I saw the agenda for this course, I thought ‘aha, this is it.’

Can you recall your expectations for attending and what you hoped to gain from the course?
My main expectation was that it would be very different to most other courses and therefore very interesting. I really enjoy psychological concepts as well so I was looking forward to it intellectually as well as from a personal development perspective. I was hungry for some personal development and felt that the course’s premise regarding building emotional intelligence and resilience sounded ideal for my needs at the time.

Did the course meet your expectations and how/why?
Yes. The course was very good, especially the first two days. The course had a lot of new concepts which were empowering. I should express that the course is actually very intense and emotionally draining / challenging (but in a good way). It does ask you to do a lot of self-refection and pushes you to consider your triggers. This can be confronting at first – but in doing so the course enables you (skilfully led by Michelle) to really dig in to how you are in the workplace, what you need and where you can make some transformation. The support I got around balancing and managing workplace emotions was fantastic.

The core skills of this course include vulnerability, trust, authenticity and rising after failure – can you share a little of how you applied the skills once the course was completed?
There were some key takeaways for me: 

• Permissions slips (one of the course exercises) – what do I need to give myself permission for in order to show up? This helped me to show up better at work even on days when I was feeling very stressed or dealing with anxiety. 
• I found the values work very helpful and especially identifying new things about my values that help me centre myself at work and regain energy (as well as understanding better why some activities drain my energy while others fill up my bucket again). 
• The concept of not trying to fit in but instead ‘acting so that I belong’ was very empowering. It helped me to stop trying to ‘be’ the person work wanted me to be and instead bring my authentic self to work.

We were given some really practical techniques and to be honest, I am still using them today. What I really liked was how the course gave us both the foundation (and knowledge) for the exercise (e.g., the why and purpose) as well as the practical tools to put it into play and make some real changes. 

What did you change as a result of attending?
The main thing I have changed is to try to align my work day and week in line with my values. I had done values work before, but always from a more negative standpoint e.g., what are my hard boundaries, what won’t I accept etc. However, Michelle’s team approached it more from a positive outlook e.g., what do I need in my day to thrive, what must I do everyday in order to be my best self. This was the first time I had ever approached it from this perspective and it was really empowering. 

How did the course (and did it) change your language / or the way you approached situations or decisions as a leader?
During the course I identified some ‘empathic misses’ I had been doing and I trained myself not to do these. I had never really considered the difference between sympathy and empathy and how empathy is really the key to making the difference as a leader. This changes in the language you use. For example, sympathy sounds like, “I am sorry you are having a tough day.” Whereas empathy sounds more like, “I imagine you are feeling a little overwhelmed right now, and I make up that you might find some relief in taking a break. I’d like to support you. How about, once you’ve had a moment to pause, we pick up this conversation so I can understand if there is anything you’d like me to do?” They gave us the language to make the changes, it was very powerful.

This course is described as a road map for those who wish to lead mindfully. Do you feel that you are now more mindful in the way you lead?
I think I have a lot more tools to lead mindfully as a result of the course. Realistically, my work is incredibly busy so at the moment I am just swimming very hard to stay afloat and probably not practising some of the concepts I learned as well as I could be! But the difference now is, I know what they are and I can reference those tools at any moment. 

Is there anything that surprised you about the course? Or made you reflect on something specific about your leadership style?
The course seemed to use a different concept of values to what I expected. I’ve done values assessments before that focused on the things that are core values (e.g., the ethical things that I will not compromise on). The values in this course seemed to be focused different, more positively around the things that we need in our lives to be happy. Re-focusing some of my work on this was very good to help me become more resilient at work.

I also enjoyed how the course addressed a couple of other core concepts which really spoke to me:

• That failure is ok and that we can learn from it
• That most of the time people are doing the best job they can with the tools that they have

Both of these realisations (and the following acceptance) helped me to become a better leader.

Were you aware of Brene’s work before attending? If not – what would you say to someone looking at attending but who isn’t aware of Brene’s work?
Yes, though not in detail. I would suggest they go listen to one of her podcasts or Ted talks because they’re very easy to find and that will give them a good idea of the focus of the course.

Would you recommend the course and why?
Yes, I absolutely would, especially to a leader or to someone who wanted to build their self-courage. If there are areas of your leadership you aren’t as confident in, or if you feel you don’t have a voice / are an imposter/or are struggling to manage with overwhelm or confidence, this course will help you to move past those barriers and to thrive.

Don’t miss out on securing tickets to the September Dare to Lead™ Masterclass! For more information, visit the website: https://the-hatchery.co/event/dare-to-lead-masterclass-sep-2024/