The first full chapter of Dare To Lead is called “The Moment and the Myths” (it’s the first of five sections in Part One, “Rumbling With Vulnerability”). The core of Dr. Brown’s message is this: Vulnerability is at the core of the change we seek to make through our art and through our leadership.
I can’t summarize this chapter any more succinctly than Dr. Brown has – she has effectively taken years of research, turned it into the book Daring Greatly, and then turned that book into these few pages. I won’t attempt to the “Four Six Myths of Vulnerability” or give great detail for the strategies she outlines at the end of the chapter. What I want to do is unpack the chapter, discuss its implications specifically for choral leaders, and then ask you the questions I’ve been asking myself as I read.
To feel is to be vulnerable.
“Vulnerability isn’t just the center of hard emotions, it’s the core of all emotions.” (42) “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, and joy.” (43)
This is what we’re talking about. Love, belonging, and joy should be at the core of the music we make together in choir, and it’s clear from Dr. Brown’s decades of research that it is only through vulnerability that we can consistently achieve those deep, powerful emotions. True expressions of love and joy are the feelings that will resonate with our singers across the decades; it’s probably what I remember most about my youthful music-making.
Vulnerability and trust go hand in hand.
You can’t build trust without being vulnerable. You can’t be vulnerable without feeling trust in the people you’re with. That seeming paradox is at the core of shedding armor and embracing vulnerability. Dr. Brown says, “trust is in fact earned in the smallest of moments […] through paying attention, listening, and gestures of genuine care and affection.” (32)
I think this is of primary concern to the choral leader and to choral ensembles – emotional vulnerability is at the core of the vocal music we seek to make, and it simply can’t be made without trust of the leader and trust between the ensemble singers.
I know many ensembles that do a particularly good job at kickstarting this vulnerability-trust cycle with early-year retreats, team building exercises, and other activities designed to raise questions and help singers enter into relationships that can continue to build. This start, I think, needs to be viewed as a foundation, not an end – this cycle needs to be paid into throughout the year. Perhaps a choir can have monthly “Olympics” competing in silly games, or a regular series of fireside chats on important issues, guided by the leader. (Both examples drawn from friends’ work).
I think choirs run the risk of cheating this cycle due to the nature of the work we do. Choral music encourages vulnerability in its very existence – singing emotionally set poetry is naturally a vulnerable act. We can use that vulnerability to build our cycle, but we can also cheat by effectively forcing vulnerability from our singers without the corresponding trust. That’s a common solution, but not great long-term for supporting the well-being and growth of the singer, the ensemble, or the choral program.
Trust stacking is vital to building your group’s capacity.
Dr. Brown says “trust is the stacking and layering of small moments and reciprocal vulnerability over time.” (34)
I see three obvious situations involving trust-stacking. Of course, as I mentioned above, we trust-stack as we build our ensemble. It takes time to build that trust, and the retreats we take are really opportunities to trust stack in a much tighter time frame. I rehearse only once a week, so it can take weeks and weeks to stack the trust we need to make great music. The retreat is vital for speeding up that process. But even with daily choral rehearsals in school, it can take significant time to significantly trust-stack, particularly if we are not intentional about creating trust-stacking opportunities.
Second, there is the trust stacking we build over our life with a choral program. My singers might not come in knowing and trusting each other, but they come in understanding and trusting the history of the ensemble, and returning members carry that trust forward from year to year. That offloading of trust from the leader to the singers is done incrementally over years, can be squandered all-too-quickly, and is vital to creating a consistent program over time.
Third, there is the trust stacking that my colleague did as she prepared to resign at the end of the year. Knowing that her replacement would not immediately benefit from her years of trust-stacking with students, she worked hard to build trust into the circle of students, so that they would be connected to her program and committed to carrying it forward and welcoming her successor into the trust circle. Trust stacking in that way empowers your singers and enables the work you’ve done to outlive your own involvement.
Beware the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Dr. Brown references John Gottman’s research into divorce, and his reference for the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt, with contempt being the most damning in a romantic partnership.” (33)
How do you break a trust cycle quickly? Turn to these Four Horsemen. If we are committed to creating an armor-free environment for our singers, we cannot rely on these strategies. They might work in the extremely short run to get results, but in the long run the squander trust, block vulnerability, and alienate the very people we’re trying to make welcome.
The vulnerability must be genuine.
“There’s no faster way to piss of people than to try to manipulate them with vulnerability.” (38) Manipulative vulnerability is not genuine. Choral leaders have so much earned and unearned power, and using vulnerability in this way to coerce or cajole our singers is an abuse of that power.
Courage is Contagious
I’ll end with the epigraph for this chapter – courage is contagious. (18) Dr. Brown’s research is clear – “if we shield ourselves from all feedback, we stop growing.” (21) “Daring is saying, ‘I know I will eventually fail, and I’m still all in.'” (19) When our singers see us being vulnerable, when they see us acknowledging the inevitability of failure and going for it anyway, they will mirror our courage and our vulnerability. They will walk through the flames if they see us do the same.
Questions
“Vulnerability minus boundaries is not vulnerability. It’s confession, manipulation, desperation, or shock and awe, but it’s not vulnerability.” (39) What boundaries do you set for your classroom?
How do you work to fill the marble jar of every one of your singers? How can you help your singers fill each other’s marble jars? (30)
Do you have any professional colleagues on your Square Squad? (22) Do you need someone who understands the specifics of choral leadership to be on your Square Squad?
“Asking someone to “say more” often leads to profoundly deeper and more productive rumbling. Context and details matter.” (40) How often do you ask your singers to “say more”? Do you leave time in your rehearsal plans for this kind of deeper rumbling? How do you balance musical productivity with the importance of this rumbling?
When you were a young singer, did you have a safe container? Did you have “what [you] need to feel open and safe” (36) in the rehearsal process? Are you able to create a safe container for your singers, and how do you include them in the process of creating it?
The next four chapters will continue to wrestle with ideas of vulnerability and trust, and offer many more insights valuable to choral leaders. I’ll publish my reflections on Section 2, “The Call To Courage” on Monday, June 24.