Brené Brown Shares Insights on Leadership and AI in Business Insider Interview

Brené Brown, known for her research on shame and vulnerability, stated that Brown stated that poor leadership behaviors are increasingly enabled by authoritarian trends, especially in tech. In an interview this month with Aki Ito, chief correspondent at Business Insider, Brown met Ito in a San Francisco hotel on the sidelines of a conference hosted by BetterUp.

’' She added that scrutiny increases when national leaders hold differing perspectives, but offered 'zero excuses' for poor leadership.

Brown's viral TED talk on her research, delivered 16 years ago, has garnered nearly 100 million views. In person, she appeared warm and disarming, rarely breaking eye contact and offering self-deprecating quips, according to the report. Since rising to fame, Brown has applied her research to the workplace, creating a leadership curriculum acquired by BetterUp.

As executive chair of the Center for Daring Leadership, she is embedded inside organizations including power management giant Eaton and enterprise network provider Lumen Technologies. Brown described instability for CEOs, noting even successful executives face crumbling foundations from forces like AI, changing markets, and geopolitics.

If you want to play to win, you’re going to have to look out at the next peak and make a jump.

' She noted no CEO is unaware that building trust on teams is among the hardest tasks. Brown has built her own AI agent, feeding it information about herself and how she wants it to think. The agent creates briefings for her ahead of meetings with executives she advises, and she has asked it personal questions, such as whether to add creatine to her supplement stack.

' Brown identified CEO mistakes in AI transitions, including implementing strategies unrelated to business goals and failing to invest in employees while focusing on technology. ' For rank-and-file workers grappling with AI's mix of utility and job threats, Brown advised holding the tension of paradox as a leadership superpower, saying, 'I love this. I hate it.

' Brown expressed hope mixed with fear about AI's broader implications, partly because she has Gen Z kids, but also due to concerns for society. ' She added that an overwhelmed citizenry might default to hypernormalizing and choosing certainty, which scares her for companies and democracy.