The "Strong Ground" of Belonging
My first keynote & latest PT article highlighting Brené Brown’s new book
This week was a neat milestone: my first “keynote” speech at the annual Cornerstone’s Federal Innovation Summit.
In the context of ‘innovation,’ I was grateful to sidestep AI, and tech transformation to talk about something in the what’s-old-is-new category: belonging.
The speech went well (!) and I’ll share the recording once it’s available, but to help those who heard the talk about others chew on these ideas a bit more, I published a piece in Psychology Today call the The ‘Strong Ground’ of Belonging
The article builds on Brené Brown’s great new book that I just finished reading, Strong Ground, and explores how relational leadership and efforts to help others belong is all of our jobs.
I share stories from my own career in government and spoilers from the movie How to Train a Dragon (sorry, dragon slayers!) to make the case for why our workplaces need to help people feel felt.
Take aways are below but please check out the full article and let me know what stories, resonance, or push back you have!
Read it here
Key points
- People don’t just want to fit in, they want to feel felt for who they are.
- Relational leadership means holding the paradox that accountability and belonging can coexist.
- We all can build belonging through repair, appreciation, buffers, and consistency.
- When employees feel they belong, they don’t just strengthen culture, they grow it.