Vulnerability, the Birthplace of Courage with DeDe Halfhill

If vulnerability is the key to finding courage, how does compassion, kindness, and love play a role in personal growth and leadership?

About this Conversation

News of the pandemic and climate change leave many of us feeling vulnerable. Fortunately, it's from this place of vulnerability that we can find the courage to grow and even lead.

DeDe Halfhill's unique leadership in the U.S. Air Force got the attention of renowned researcher and author Brené Brown, and her story was told in Brown's bestselling book, "Dare to Lead."

DeDe Halfhill

DeDe Halfhill has become an authority on vulnerable leadership, especially where it relates to traditionally male-dominated decision-making spaces. Halfhill has over 20 years of experience leading in the U.S. Air Force where she is a Colonel.

Her broad leadership experience includes being the Strategic Communication Advisor to the Chief of Staff, and being deployed twice to Iraq as the Public Affairs Advisor to the Commanding General and as the Commander, 332nd Expeditionary Force Support Squadron, Joint Base Balad, Iraq.

Why tune in?

Halfhill started following the work of Brené Brown when she was a squadron commander in Iraq and later trained to teach Brown's unique leadership techniques to other military officers, embracing the idea that vulnerability is not weakness, but the path to courage.

"Society is changing. And what society needs from its leaders is changing. It needs leaders who can have really hard conversations around things like race, sexual assault, suicide. So to say you get to be a leader who doesn’t talk about feelings, that’s not possible anymore." – DeDe Halfhill

A focus on language has been at the heart of Halfhill's work since 2014 when she noticed that words such as feel, compassion, kindness, mercy, friendliness and even love that were present in the 1948 Air Force manual had been lost over the decades.