Brené Brown on the State of Leadership in America Today

16:56Brené Brown:Wherever.

16:57Kara Swisher:Right, right. Like a bunch of five-year-olds. That's right. Just give me the ball. Give me the ball. Give me the ball. And you don't know where it's going.

17:04Brené Brown:Yeah. I mean, just think about that. Like, if you coach soccer, what age do you think a player would have to be to take a high ball into the chest, settle it, put their foot on it, and look down the field and guess where it's going?

17:18Kara Swisher:Over seven.

17:19Brené Brown:Right. Yeah. Right.

17:21Kara Swisher:Yeah.

17:21Brené Brown:Yeah, they're going to have to have a lot of new cognitive skills. Right. We don't have them today, Kara. In the C-suite, very few leaders' paradoxical thinking that we started our conversation with, the ability to hold competing ideas and not tap out because it's uncomfortable.

17:39Kara Swisher:Well, a lot of that is fear, obviously, because there's a fearfulness, not just from Trump, but fearfulness of missing out, the whole, all this. It's an inescapable emotion for all leaders. But according to your book, the goal shouldn't be avoiding fear or even overcoming it. It's just the self-awareness to recognize it when they're afraid and make rational decisions. Because then if not, fear hijacks judgment and makes decisions emotional without even realizing, get me an AI strategy. And you call this the above, below the line practice. Talk about how that works and how anger intersects with fear.

18:11Brené Brown:I'm fixing to change your life. Okay, I'm ready. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like your wife and your kids are going to be like, new Kara. Doubt it. Hashtag Brene Brown saved us. Okay.

18:23Kara Swisher:Literally same person since 1962. But go ahead.

18:27Brené Brown:Okay. Try. So I get on the phone with my coach after a particularly shitty meeting. And I was like, oh, my God, Courtney, I was such an asshole. I mean, I was so out of my integrity that I don't like circle back and apologizing from my first book is not going to cut it. Like I am embarrassed by my behavior. Yeah. And she said, it sounds like you were really under the line. And I said, what does it mean? And she said, the line is fear. And we're in fear all the time, every day. And she said, when you're above the line in fear, you know you're in fear. You can name you're in fear, but you're driving.

19:01Brené Brown:You're driving. Right. You're making good decisions. You're okay. You're okay. In fear. When you're under the line, she didn't say this because it's very Texan, but I think of it as, fear is driving. You're not riding shotgun. You're hogtied in the trunk.

19:14Kara Swisher:Oh, wow.

19:15Brené Brown:Hey, Texan. I mean, fifth generation. What can I do? Okay. Since 1965. Yeah. So I said, how do you know when you're under the line? And she said, listen to your language and look for one of three characters that emerges from you. The hero, the victim, and the villain. Ah. And I said, what does that sound like? And she said, well, a lot of times what I hear you say when you're under the line is, fuck it, I'll do it myself. Ah, the hero. or I'll say, no one gets how hard this is on me. Like, my name's out there, you know, the victim. Or I don't care if everybody hates me. This is what we're going to do.

19:55Brené Brown:Oh, the villain. And she said, when you're above the line, and this actually tracks to the drama triangle. When you're above the line, there are three different kind of personas, not personas, but three different actions you take on. Coaching, co-creating, and challenging productively.

20:13Kara Swisher:All right. So what do those sound like? Because right now I'm the villain just all the time, but go ahead.

20:21Brené Brown:I don't know, but when I see dead people, I see squishy Kara. I see mom.

20:29Kara Swisher:Okay. All right. Okay. All right. But what is the three of the positive above the line? What do they sound like?

20:34Brené Brown:Can we figure this out together? Co-creation or coaching? You know what, Kara? You worked your butt off on this. It's slightly off. I don't think I set you up for success. Let's talk about how we get there. Co-creating, coaching, and then challenging. I'm not tracking, but you seem sure. Can you help me get there? So productive challenging. Oh, I see. And so now it's really interesting because when Steve and I will get into a crunchy place, especially about our kids because I can get panicked really easy. I don't think you do this. You're not fearful about your kids as much, right? I'm not. No.

21:11Brené Brown:But I'm always like, oh, my God, is that dangerous? What's going to happen?

21:15Kara Swisher:Oh, yeah, that's my wife. Yeah, yeah. That's my wife.

21:16Brené Brown:Yeah, there's usually one. Yeah. And so he'll say, well, I can be anxious. I just don't know that I have enough information or that I'm taking from the information we have enough to panic. And I'll say, am I under the line? He's like, maybe. And so now I bet five times a day I'll be in a meeting with my leadership team and someone will say, you know what? I'm under the line. Oh, okay. And then we'll just take a 10-minute break and come back, and I'll say, thanks, Kara, for calling the timeout. Do you want to talk about how you got under the line? And the last time I did that, the person said, yeah, I can tell you how I got under the line.

21:53Kara Swisher:Is there any plus in leadership to say, fuck it, I'll do it myself? Like that's a hero and a villain. A villain is hero, essentially, right?

22:01Brené Brown:Oh, it is. It's like the best Voldemort that we have. Yeah, I'll do it myself. What if you're actually better at doing it yourself? Well, I think that's great as long as you want a tiny little impact in a tiny little company where you can do all the tiny little shit, your tiny little self.

22:17Kara Swisher:Right. Got it. Okay. That's why I'm asking for a leader because a lot of leaders do exhibit that, right? That's a very classic. Both of those things are classic.

22:24Brené Brown:Well, you know who they're classic for? What? They're classic for founders.

22:28Kara Swisher:Founders, right. Yeah. Founders. That's right. You're right.

22:31Brené Brown:You're correct. I am going to check your email. I am going to pick the fonts. This is my company.

22:38Kara Swisher:Right. Yeah, they are. That's exactly right. And the victim one is very classic now for tech people. They always feel that they are being victimized as leaders and therefore they react to everything in that way. Yeah. We'll be back in a minute.

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26:44Kara Swisher:So you zero in on what you call the tenacity of paradox, and you write that, quote, paradoxes embrace ambiguity, expose our intolerance for uncertainty, push our boundaries. And if we hang on long enough, often force us to deny the comfort of our ideologies for a deeper wisdom that is more honest reflection of the human experience and the human spirit. spirit. Talk about this in a practical sense. How can leaders embrace paradoxical thinking when they're constantly faced with the binary, the zero sum, this or this, budget priorities, spending money, giving into Trump? You know, everything feels binary in a paradoxical world.

27:17Brené Brown:Right. So what's interesting is I'm going to use your metaphor to talk about this. So the knife that you talked about. I need this knife. It's a tool for my life. It can keep me alive. I can cut food. I need this knife. This knife is getting shoved into my stomach by people. So if you can hold on to a knife as a tool, it's being misused. A knife as a tool, it's being misused. How we tap out is we say, oh, it's good and bad. That's the tap out. Hold on longer. Hold on longer. Oh, it's a tool. It's being used to hurt people. We've got a knife holder issue.

28:05Kara Swisher:Right. Exactly.

28:07Brené Brown:But you have to hold on to that paradox long enough to know. It's like fire. You can keep yourself warm or burn down the barn. Right. And so I think I would say this. with the most senior leaders that I'm around today all over the world, if there were two, maybe three things that I say that they have that a lot of leaders are struggling with right now, the ability to hold paradox until something new emerges, systems thinking, which I don't know how systems thinking fell out of favor, but now given the complexity inside and outside of organizations, if you can't see things in terms of systems that are connected in inescapable ways, you're going to fail.

28:53Brené Brown:And then the third one, which I'd be interested in your take on this, self-awareness.

28:59Kara Swisher:Well, yes. That's, that is, yeah. That was ominous. I often, I often, I just recently I was with some tech people and they started saying things. I went, huh? And they're like, what? I go, are you even listening to yourself? Do you have any amount of self-awareness? Like victim, victim, victim mentality. And I was like, you don't look like a victim to me. You could have me disappeared in five minutes if you really, you know, put your mind to it. And it was really interesting. The second one, though, I think is systems thinking. You're right. They don't see beyond the bigger picture or that things can be confusing in weight, the sort of lack of ability to wait for things.

29:39Kara Swisher:And I think that's hard. I mean, I actually think I do this very well when people are like, what's going to happen? I'm like, I don't know yet. I got to think about it. Like, it's very complex. But when you think about that, why are there fewer people doing that? What has happened to our brains? Because a lot of the famous business leaders, that was part of it, is seeing a network, seeing the bigger picture, I guess. That's sort of the old version of it.

30:05Brené Brown:Here's how I think this is going to play out. And this is why I'm optimistic for those of us who want something different and want more power with to and within. Systems in order to survive, whether they're cellular systems or organizational systems, team systems, have to have permeable boundaries. And they need permeable boundaries for feedback to flow in and out. Sure. Yeah. When boundaries become impermeable, which you're seeing across the tech world, especially right now, systems become self-referencing. Mm-hmm. Like, we just are by ourselves.

30:42Kara Swisher:Right. Or with enablers that violently agree with us. Right, right, right. Which is tech people to a T.

30:47Brené Brown:Right. And so impermeable systems that are self-referencing. Yeah. Are we great? I think we are great. Well, I think we're great too. Those impermeable boundaries, the step after self-referencing becomes atrophy.

31:03Kara Swisher:Right. But you call it armor. You said the various defense mechanism that leaders use to avoid doing that. So according to your research, it's the main impediment to strong and effective leadership, people who are hardwired to self-protect. It's very difficult to let go of armor. And you've talked to a lot of leaders. How do you get them to put down their armor?

31:21Brené Brown:It's really interesting. I hypothesized early when we started this research on leadership, what, 17, 18 years ago, that the biggest barrier to courageous leadership was fear. I was wrong. And in fact, some of the most courageous leaders that we interviewed, political leaders, NGO leaders, corporate leaders, when I said, here's my hypothesis, they said, listen, if you're going to put together a list of daring leaders who are not afraid, don't put me on it because I wake up afraid. I go to bed afraid. I'm afraid every day. And I was like, but what I learned is it's not fear that gets in the way of being brave.

31:54Brené Brown:It's armor. When we're afraid, what armor do we put on to self-protect? And so the way we help, you know, over the last six years, we've taken 165 ,000 leaders through Dare to Lead, 45 countries. The quickest way to have people understand who they are when they're afraid or feeling vulnerable is to have them identify their armor. And it's a really painful exercise. So for me, I micromanage, I get perfectionistic, and I get completely overly decisive. So if we're in a meeting, I'll be like, and I get fearful. I don't get analysis paralysis. I say, shut it down. Move her to this team. Don't do this.

32:38Brené Brown:Reinvest here. Then I'm like, shit, I think I'm afraid. Don't do any of those things. And my team's always like, we don't write anything down when you're like this. You know, like, don't worry. We're not moving on anything when you go into the space because we know you're under the line. So I think identifying the armor, if you're really ballsy, you can ask someone that loves you, who am I when I'm afraid?

33:03Kara Swisher:Ah, interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I ignore things. Oh, you do? I pretend they aren't happening. Oh, yeah. And then they change.

33:11Brené Brown:I do outweigh them.

33:13Kara Swisher:I do. I'm like, huh? Someone says to me, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. Like that kind of thing. Oh, I like it. It's a skill set. Yeah, it works. It actually is a very good skill set. And with the fear thing, it's interesting because people do put up armor. You can armor fear with fear, actually. I was talking to my daughter, and she was scared of something that wasn't scary. And I said, it's okay to be scary. Some things are scary. You should be fine with it. You should be fine with it. And then I taught her my famous line, which is, the dark is afraid of me. When she was scared of the dark, I'm like, the dark is afraid of me.

33:44Kara Swisher:And she laughed, and it was fine. But one of the things that I think is difficult that we sort of bleach out of kids is fear of the dark. It's okay to feel those. Most parents go, don't be scared. Like, don't be. Like, that's a thing I've said as a parent many times. Don't be scared of that. Or this week, my daughter was scared of, she loves all the music from K-pop Demon Hunters. Loves it. But can't watch the movie. That scares her. So it's a really interesting problem because she loves it so much but can't watch it because she's so scared.

34:17Brené Brown:But I think you just said something that's really important. I'm always cautious to draw lines between parenting and leadership because I don't want to infantilize adults, but some things just hold, which is it's okay to be afraid. just don't be an asshole to other people when you're in fear especially if you have power over those people if you have some kind of influence over their jobs or their pay or their job security like somebody asked me an interview i think it was dan harris i can't remember but they said if you wanted to go back to yourself in the in your early 20s what would would say to myself is, it's okay to be afraid.

35:05Brené Brown:Watch it because you're going to become scary when you're scared.

35:09Kara Swisher:Ah, that's a good line.

35:10Brené Brown:Yeah. And I can become scary when I'm scared. But I grew up in a family where you could always be angry. Anger was always okay. You could never be afraid and you could never be in pain, have your feelings hurt. Well, anger is scared. Right. Right. Anger is scared and anger is having your feelings hurt. But the expression of that was only, the only thing allowed for that is you can be pissed off. And so when I ask a group of leaders, how many of you find it easier to be pissed off than hurt? Yes. Every hand goes up.

35:47Kara Swisher:Right. Especially men. They don't want to be strong. Oh, men and women. Right. Men and women. And men feel uncomfortable.

35:54Brené Brown:Yeah, because for women, I cannot fulfill every shitty stereotype you have about me. That jeopardizes my ambition and my career.

36:03Kara Swisher:Right. I've heard from so many women leaders, especially political ones, I can't do that. Men can. Oh, yeah. But sometimes I'm like, come on, just do it anyway. And they're like, we're going to lose no matter what we do. Interestingly, I'm interviewing Kamala Harris this week live. And I think I'm thinking about that a lot because she had to live in so many different paradigms, right? She was too tough. She was too tough. If she wasn't tough enough, she was not tough enough. You know what I mean? It's just like all of them. Did she say enough? Did she push enough? If she pushed, it's just an interesting question.

36:34Brené Brown:Oh, I mean, it's the classic double bind. And then you've got a woman, but you've got a black woman and a black Asian woman. So then you've got the double binds and the vices become so tight on both sides that the squeeze is death. Yeah.

36:51Kara Swisher:Yeah. Right. It's true. It's really hard. So every episode we get an expert to send a guest a question. Oh, shit. Let's hear yours. It's a good one. Don't worry. Hi, Brene Brown. It's Bobby Brown here. You and I are both on book tours now, and I feel like we've been following each other. I hope we get to meet someday soon. My expert question for you is this. I'm a founder and entrepreneur who sold my first namesake brand to a very big corporation. I was often in a boardroom with a lot of men in suits who had a ton of opinions on what products we should launch to be competitive in the beauty market and mostly how women feel.

37:32Kara Swisher:There was even one executive who told me no one wants to take beauty advice from a soccer mom. The problem was, I was a soccer mom, and I just didn't agree with him.

37:42Brené Brown:Let me tell you, it was interesting times. Your new book is based on the work you've done in Fortune 500 companies and the conversations

37:50Kara Swisher:you're having with CEOs about how leadership styles need to change as we navigate through rapid and destructive change. I'm guessing you've been in a lot of corporate boardrooms with these same guys.

38:02Brené Brown:And my question is, are you seeing any real change? because I'm still seeing a lot of mansplaining. How are you hoping to shift this dynamic, and what kind of changes are you seeing that makes you feel optimistic about the leaders of the future?

38:17Kara Swisher:Thanks, Brene, and I'll see you on the book tour circuit.

38:20Brené Brown:I wanted to get a brown. I mean, but wait, my whole face? Brought to you by Jones Road.

38:26Kara Swisher:Me too.

38:27Brené Brown:I'm like a huge fan.

38:28Kara Swisher:Yeah. I mean, we're back. She was talking about Estee Lauder there, where they started to take over her name, actually.

38:34Brené Brown:Yeah, Bobby Brown, of course. And then that no compete was like, oh, my God. I was so excited when Jones Road came out because I was like, thank God, a woman at the helm of stuff that women wear. Right, which is what her original company was. And I mean, raise your hand if you've been a soccer mom.

38:50Kara Swisher:Yes, me too.

38:50Brené Brown:Right. So I'm still in those rooms on occasion. You know, it's interesting that because in Strong Ground, I really take down the idea of executive presence and say, you know, I don't know. that is really covert, often covert language for diminishing the talents of women, people of color, introverts, shy people, people who process longer. I am hopeful because I do see that But the best leaders among us across gender, across race, understand that the key to innovation and impact, revenue growth, is productive challenge on teams. And those leaders, despite their discomfort, want to be surrounded by different ideas and different people who challenge and represent the market segments that they serve in different ways.

39:58Brené Brown:Those are the best of our leaders. Has this new administration given a green light to returning to old ways of working? The command and control. The command and control. And look, if you do anything with this clip, make sure that this is hyphenated. Don't take these words apart from each other. White male power over. Not white male power with. There are tons of great white men leaders that are saying power with, productive challenge, inclusivity. But a very specific model of power, which is white-male-power-over, is not good for growth, revenue, impact, or innovation. But it's easier. Yeah, it's definitely easier.

40:56Brené Brown:That's the definition of privilege.

40:58Kara Swisher:But you said you felt optimistic. She was asking, what are you seeing? Give me an example that makes you feel optimistic about future leaders. I'm seeing leaders across multiple different industries across the world having the option to return to a way of leading that's in the zeitgeist right now and saying, I'm not doing that. Right.

41:22Brené Brown:Not for moral reasons. because it's bad business. Right, even if it might be personally satisfying. Yeah, even if it's easier for me.

41:30Kara Swisher:But interestingly enough, speaking of this masculine energy, the values you write about, like vulnerability and empathy, are often coded as feminine in our society. But a lot of, say, tech CEOs right now have invested in performative masculinity. Same thing with Pete Hegseth's speech to the military. It was all about looks and manliness, which means only one thing to me is that it's very small on Pete Hegseth. But Mark Zuckerberg telling Joe Rogan that he wants more masculine energy in corporate America is the obvious example. It goes beyond that. Elon Musk talked about so-called civilizational suicidal empathy, the idea that excessive compassion undermines societal cohesion, values and security.

42:06Kara Swisher:From Musk's point of view, the West has become too accepting and empathetic and it's a weakness. Talk about, you know, a lot of it right now comes from tech. Yeah.

42:15Brené Brown:I'm not going to pretend to understand the smallness from which this comes. What I can say is empathy is a very nuanced thing. And I think for me, there are two explanations why you'd be anti-empathy. One, if you want to hurt people and you don't want any collective pushback, I think empathy would be a problem. Two, I think there's two different kinds of empathy as we think about it in social science. There's cognitive empathy and affective empathy. You call me and you say, shit, I'm in a hard place. Here's what's going on. And I listen and I connect with what you're saying. I reflect it back to you.

43:02Brené Brown:You feel seen and heard and believed. And I not, for one second, I don't take on your emotion. I just let you know you're not alone. I see you. I believe you. And I understand what it is. Right. That is actually the freaking source code for democracy.

43:18Kara Swisher:Right, right.

43:19Brené Brown:And that is a classic psychiatrist thing, right? Well, it's just, it's cognitive empathy. Everybody can do it to everybody. You say to your daughter, I love this music and I really want to watch it, but I'm scared. And you say, enjoy the music. and it's okay to be scared of it. And when you're ready, you can watch it. But enjoy the music. There's nothing wrong. It's probably exactly what you said.

43:39Kara Swisher:Except now I'm hearing it every single day, five or seven times a day, but go ahead. That's the mom tax. If I hear take down one more time. Oh yeah, no, that's the mom tax.

43:49Brené Brown:Yeah. If you called me and you said you were having a hard time and then I'm like, tell me all about it. And then I start feeling it with you. And then you're sad, I'm sad. That's affective empathy. and it's not productive. It causes burnout. It actually ends up causing compassion fatigue, but two different kinds of empathy. Right.

44:07Kara Swisher:And then you get mad about talking to that person, right?

44:09Brené Brown:Right. Right. Now you're enmeshed. That's not empathy. That's enmeshment. I don't know where you end and I begin. And now we're just both in the shithole. So that's not good. But I think the masculine energy, it just feels really performative to me. I don't even know. I'm not 100 % convinced that they believe it or know what they're saying. And they're not just trying to pass the fidelity test. Like, I don't know, but I can... Well, explain, when you watched, you watched the Pete Hexess thing. What did you think there? I actually... That's a leadership moment, right? I don't... This is really a painful...

44:50Brené Brown:I have not talked about this. Like, this is a really painful thing for me. I think over the past 15 years, I've done a ton of work with the military and all pro bono just as part of what I feel like is my – just something I care about.

45:05Kara Swisher:Your duty. It's your duty. It is. Patriotic duty.

45:07Brené Brown:It's just – I mean, I think – and I have a lot of conversations with who I believe are amazing military leaders. There's many. Yeah. Oh, there's so many. I probably can't even engage in a conversation where I joke about it because I find it to be very heartbreaking. Yeah.

45:27Kara Swisher:Although they weren't buying it either, Renee. No, no. You can see it.

45:30Brené Brown:They weren't. And look, there are great military leaders and there are dangerous military leaders. There are great corporate leaders and dangerous corporate leaders. There are great NGO leaders and dangerous. Great faith leaders, dangerous faith leaders.

45:45Kara Swisher:Absolutely.

45:45Brené Brown:The industry in which you work does not define your goodness. Who you are every day in a room when you have more power over other people, that defines who you are. And so I can't joke about that because I find it heartbreaking.

46:05Brené Brown:And because I've done so much work with the military, I find it as a citizen to be frightening.

46:16Kara Swisher:It is. And at the same time, it was a leadership fail. Like, I don't think it worked. I think it was a performative clown. Like, I don't think it sunk in, I would say. I think most people across the spectrum had the same reaction, including the Trump people, by the way. I don't think anyone thought that worked.

46:33Brené Brown:You got to remember, if you just want the easiest source code for understanding leadership and evaluating leadership, there's a very simple question. When you look at a leader, is it clear to you that they know their job is to serve the people they lead and not be served by them?

46:53Kara Swisher:Yep. We'll be back in a minute.

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49:40Kara Swisher:One of the things you mentioned humanity, human spirit, human experience throughout the book, and you emphasize the importance of taking that human centered approach to leadership. The same time, lots of CEOs, CTOs in every industry are feeling the need or pressure to incorporate AI into their organizations, which is something you also talked about. Talk about the rapid adoption of AI in the workplace and how leaders can deploy it without sacrificing the human connection, you say, is foundational. Let me just read what you wrote about AI. I think we're witnessing one of the most dangerous, unresolved time paradoxes in modern history when it comes to AI, and it's basically framed like this in the United States.

50:18Kara Swisher:We can't slow down and worry about ethics and safety. We need to beat China, the risks and rewards of putting untested technology into the market have never been more serious. And we're not seeing the level of daring leadership we need to address these paradoxes related to AI. So talk about what daring leadership would look like and about what's happening right now in this space, because it does remove human connection in a lot of ways.

50:41Brené Brown:I have a lot of thoughts on AI. I have a lot of thoughts from the research, and I have a lot of, I had a really hard personal experience with that. I'll talk about the research first, which is, you know, I think about Linda Hill from Harvard, who has studied digital transformation for decades. My favorite quote by her is, the most difficult part of digital transformation is never the technology, it's always the human beings who are using the technology. And so one of the things that scares me right now is the platitude, don't worry about our relevance, what makes us human will keep us relevant.

51:15Brené Brown:We are terrible at what makes us human. We are terrible right now at discernment, empathy, connection, courage, because it's, you know, Welchian leadership taught us 30 years ago. This is Jack Welch. Yes. What makes us human is a liability to growth, revenue, and performance.

51:34Kara Swisher:Yes, so he's one of the most damaging leaders.

51:36Brené Brown:Right. And so we kind of bought that even though there have never been data ever to support it. Yeah. Sounds good. It sounds great.

51:46Kara Swisher:Yeah.

51:46Brené Brown:So right now we find ourselves in a situation where we're not good at what uniquely is us. So we need to skill up and relearn and unlearn on that. I think the idea that we're not using AI, it's happening to us in the workforce is killing agency. People have no sense of agency because leaders are not, you know, show me your AI investment. And I'm going to ask two questions. Tell me exactly how this is aligned with your business strategy. strategy and show me the line item where the human investment on using AI is proportional to the tech investment. It doesn't exist right now. We'll get there, but we won't get there until there's wasted billions of dollars and traumatized workforce.

52:40Brené Brown:For me personally, we did something really interesting. I'll be curious what you think about this. For this research in Strong Ground, we ran a parallel literature review process. us. We did an entire literature review on AI across four different platforms. Then we did a traditional literature review with the research team that was in the stacks doing all the old school stuff. Then we hired a group of college interns. We called them the hallucination hunters. And their job was to take apart the lit review done by AI. 70 % of the citations were hallucinations in the AI lit review. That's not a surprise.

53:18Brené Brown:I mean, wait, it would say like 2024, Swisher, K, and Brown, B, Harvard Business Review, Volume 24, AI analysis on manufacturing industry. I mean, it was so legit, but that did not exist. That seemed legit. Yeah, that did not exist. Mm-hmm. It would take a quote and attribute it to a scholar. and that scholar ended up like being Reddit user at I like my bike.

53:53Kara Swisher:Ah, wow. Yeah. It's very sycophantic. Yes, very. That's the problem. I mean, it's not dependable. Certain things it is. Certain things that are like, what is this? What is this tick? What is this leave? What is this? Typically, they get it right. Oh, and I use it for that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The utility stuff works. The stuff that requires analysis or any kind of reporting, as you would say, is problematic. So do you see the rush to CEOs doing this as a big problem of leadership? Is it just kick it down the road or this will save me money or anything else?

54:28Brené Brown:Oh, I think it's more simple than that. I think it's like, hey, look over there. Johnny's got a new toy. Right. And my board is breathing down my neck because I don't have that new toy. And there's no thoughtful adoption tied inextricably to business strategy and leveling up the people who are going to use it in effective ways. And I'll tell you the other thing that's really weird. Like, I use it. I love it. But I use it for like weird things, like probably more utility things. There are three times in my life where I was so disoriented and kind of this weird, depressed anxiety feeling that I had a hard time getting out of bed.

55:15Brené Brown:One was 28 years ago when I got sober. I thought sobriety was going to bring massive clarity to me, but it really jacked me up for like two or three weeks before I understood, wow, there's no clarity because I don't know who I am and that's what I'm doing this for. to I took a social media sabbatical a couple years ago for a year. It changed my life. It was so disorienting. Yeah. It was great. I did about 60 days of heavy AI use. I felt like shit. I felt hollowed out. And Kate Crawford and I did a talk on AI at Aspen Ideas Festival.

55:55Kara Swisher:Amazing.

55:56Brené Brown:I love her. Do you like her work?

55:58Kara Swisher:Yes, I do. I love Kate.

55:59Brené Brown:Yeah. And I think I learned about her actually from you. And I think I heard about Atlas of AI from you, and I read it. And when she and I did this talk, I told her, I was like, I felt hollowed out, like empty on the inside. And it lingered past my usage of the instrument. And she said, it's interesting that you say hollowed out, because AI is an extraction extraction technology. We extract minerals from the earth. We extract water. We extract people's data. It's an extraction technology. So there's something poetic about the fact that when you use it for long periods of time, you feel hollowed out.

56:42Kara Swisher:Well, one of the things that I was just noting was years ago, the first technologies of the internet were push technology, push stuff at you, right? And it was too much for the bandwidth at the time. And so then it became a pull technology is you asked for something, it gave it to you. Right now, AI is a push technology. God, that's interesting. Push, push, push, pushes. Think about that. There was a company, look it up, called Pointcast. And it was the first hot company, one of the first, and it just collapsed because the bandwidth was too much of them pushing. Or think about Clockwork Orange.

57:13Kara Swisher:They're flooding you with information. It's just as bad. A desert is better than a flood, really, in many ways. It's an information flood. So let me get back to actually leadership. You said earlier, as part of your job, you end up in the room with a lot of these CEOs. And I know you do talk to a lot of tech CEOs. I'm just using them because they're the top CEOs these days. Obviously, I do, too. Were you surprised by the kowtowing, given these are the most powerful people and richest people on earth? At the White House dinner, the leading luminaries took turns going around groveling before him as the cameras rolled.

57:46Kara Swisher:You've worked with these leaders. And again, I'm only using them because they're the current top leaders with the top companies. Did you expect this kind of groveling behavior? Because you can be arrogant all you want, but it was what they become is more groveling in a weird way. What is the North Star for CEOs? If North Star is shareholder value, everything else comes in second.

58:09Brené Brown:I think it's a temporal decision. I think it's a time-based decision. Okay. Even if your North Star is shareholder value and you ultimately see your sole responsibility being stock price, value, market cap, I'm wondering if – and I don't know the answer – if these folks are taking a long enough view. even if that's your North Star? I don't know the answer to it.

58:47Kara Swisher:I've had one CEO say, actually, it's the worst thing you can do for shareholder value over the long term. That was the only one who said it to me, which was really interesting. And others are like, I have to do it kind of thing. But it has to do with humiliation too, right? And you wrote a lot about humiliation in your book. And according to Dr. Linda Harding, whose research you include in the book, humiliation may be the most toxic social dynamic of our age. You write about shame and humiliation are not effective tools, especially around social justice and cruelty, obviously, and humiliation are part of Trump's leadership style.

59:20Kara Swisher:But some on the left have weaponized shame on social medias. Oh, my God. Yeah. So talk about, I mean, it's more irritating than what Trump is doing, right? His is very quite serious, I think. But it's the same coin, like this idea of humiliation as a tool in American politics and companies. It can infect the way leaders are, presumably.

59:43Brené Brown:This is one of the biggest change, unlearn, relearn moments in my career. Because for a long time, we've always taught the four self-conscious affects, shame, guilt, humiliation, and embarrassment. Shame, I am bad. Guilt, I did something bad. Shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behavior. Super important difference. The outcomes for shame-based people, you get an F back on your test. You say to yourself, God, I'm so stupid. That's shame. Guilt, you get an F back on your test and you say, man, going out last night and partying was really stupid. I should have stayed home and studied. Then you've got humiliation and embarrassment.

1:00:19Brené Brown:And we always thought humiliation was less dangerous than shame. Because let's say somebody says, your leader at work in front of your colleague says, God, Brene, you're such an idiot. If my self-talk is, I'm such an idiot, I'm such an idiot, that's shame. But if my self-talk is, screw her, I don't deserve that, that's humiliation. Someone attacked who I am, but it was undeserved. We always thought that was less dangerous. than shame. Until like probably the last five or six years when we've done these in-depth studies on humiliation, where studies of school shooters, violent criminals, humiliation's role in violence.

1:01:03Brené Brown:And so when we start using humiliation and shame as tools, it's fundamentally dehumanizing. And I don't care whether it's from the left or the right, it's dangerous.

1:01:17Kara Swisher:Right, as a leadership tool and obviously political violence has resulted and all kinds of violence.

1:01:24Brené Brown:All kinds of violence. And that's, you know, when you look at dehumanization and you think about, you know, dehumanization researchers talk about moral inclusion. That very close to us is this idea of here are all these people that are morally included in what I think it means to be human. And to hurt people within our circle of moral inclusion is actually we're not neurobiologically wired for it. To kill, rape, assault, attack people whom we believe are morally included in humanity for us is fundamentally dangerous for us and for them. So what happens, and this happens at the hands of very expert leaders, is we think, I want to hurt them, or we want others to hurt them.

1:02:17So how can we push them beyond moral inclusion to be outside of the circle of people we see as human and deserving?

1:02:25Brené Brown:So if you're morally excluded— It's easier. It's easier.

1:02:29Kara Swisher:That's classic. In a recent interview, you referred to the person you hate the most as someone who's in politics. Let's assume it's not Pete Hegseth that you're referring to Trump. But he's someone who seems to reject most, if not all, of the findings in your book. He leads by appealing to negative emotions, primarily feel his power is very clearly coercive control, to borrow a phrase from management theory pioneer Mary Parker Follett. In Strong Ground, you quote from her 1924 book where she wrote, coercive power is the curse of the universe, coactive power, the enrichment and advancement of every human soul.

1:03:03Kara Swisher:So talk about that. And what effect does his style of leadership have on us, on our broader culture? And then alternatively, Democrats are effectively leaderless right now. Whatever you think of minority leader Chuck Schumer or House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, they're not inspiring the masses. So what would be the key characteristics of a successful Democratic presidential nominee or a Republican one who's going to counter Trump? But that's a more difficult situation because they seem to like his style of leadership at this moment.

1:03:34Brené Brown:I think what I'm looking for, and I can't speak for the citizenry, but I think what would be very appealing to me, and I think the majority of people, is someone is a leader who has the courage to put policies into effect that they have to follow. Right now, we have built in this country, politicians on both sides are creating laws and policies in a very careless way because they have no intention of following them themselves. There's one group of rules for the citizenry and one group of rules for the politicians. And as long as that remains the truth, I don't think either side is going to be successful in making this country what it can be.

1:04:21Brené Brown:I mean, I believe in the democratic ideal. I believe in the experiment of democracy. I believe in a multicultural democracy. I'm not sure that that is the goal on the far right or the far left. I'm not sure that either side on the extremes, a standard deviation out, is interested in democracy as an ideal. I really don't think that's true. And so to me, I don't think character can be underestimated. I don't think truth-telling and intellect. I mean, if you go back to, I was able to interview Ken Burns for the new 12-part special on the American Revolution. And I was so struck by this idea from the founding fathers and mothers, because as it turns out, there was a collective group of mothers right behind those fathers.

1:05:16Brené Brown:I was so struck by the idea that the core pillars of democracy are virtue and education. I think the citizenry deserves honest, strong, disciplined leaders, accountable leaders. And I think if you put that in front of us, we're going to support it wildly.

1:05:45Kara Swisher:So at this most basic level, this is my last question. You've written a book about being a good and decent person. That's what you just described. You know, it says leaders are grounded, open, honest, empathetic. Instead of acting like defensive jerks who try to scare people into submission, they'll get better results. And yet, as we discussed, there are countless examples of leaders in business politics who aren't honest and decent, but are still tremendously successful. You're a researcher. So give us the data. Why is being good and decent leader actually more effective or successful than the alternative?

1:06:18Brené Brown:I've been thinking about this a lot, especially given the climate that we're in globally. This is going to sound so naive.

1:06:25Kara Swisher:That's okay.

1:06:26Brené Brown:I think it depends on how you define success. And I don't really believe in my heart that the majority of people want to hurt other people, want to leave the world worse than they found it. I think people care about their legacy. I think people care. I mean, you look at Trump, who's like, you know, just really crazy about the Nobel Peace Prize. Like, I think people want to be good. So if you define success as meeting a metric that could be shareholder value, but also being a good human being to other human beings, I don't think the style of leadership we're seeing right now in this administration is going to do that.

1:07:18Brené Brown:So I think by the metric that really matters to the majority of people in the world, if you think that you have to choose between being a wholehearted leader and driving growth and revenue and impact, if you think that's the choice, you are missing skills. Because it's a false dichotomy.

1:07:42Kara Swisher:Right. And do you imagine they will return? That there will be a backlash against that? Which is you're pushing here a different kind of leader. Yes.

1:07:52Brené Brown:I think courage wins in the end. Vulnerable courage again. Well, there's no courage without vulnerability, so I'm for it.

1:08:02Kara Swisher:Brene, thank you very much.

1:08:04Brené Brown:Thank you, Keri.

1:08:05Kara Swisher:This is a fascinating book. It's well worth reading. I kept reading it, and I wish people would behave like this. and then they never fail to disappoint. But there's so many people who are. So I think that's true. That's the hope. 100%. But it feels like we're in the Empire Strikes Back. Oh, we are definitely in the Empire Strikes Back. But we know how that saga ends. Badly for everybody. Stick with Star Trek. Everything is good. Everything is good in Star Trek.

1:08:31Brené Brown:Oh, it is better.

1:08:33Kara Swisher:Yeah.

1:08:37Kara Swisher:Today's show was produced by Christian Castor-Russell, Kateri Yoakum, Michelle Eloy, Megan Burney, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester and Najib Amini. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're good and decent and vulnerable. If not, the K-pop Demon Hunter soundtrack will take you down. You'll understand once you listen to it. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us.

1:09:17Kara Swisher:We'll be back on Monday with more.