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“I love the whole new trend where y’all are putting more real connection time together into the conferences that you’re building,” academic and author Brené Brown said at Convening Leaders 2025 in Houston. “Let me just to tell you — that’s paying off.”
Brené Brown, the best-selling author of six books, including Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts, shared insights from her work studying the intersection of emotions and leadership as a research professor at the University of Houston during a keynote on Jan. 13 at Convening Leaders 2025.
But as someone who has stood on countless stages at conferences and events as one of the world’s most highly sought after-speakers around the world — Brown’s breakout 2010 TED Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” has been seen by more than 60 million viewers — Brown also talked directly to the audience of event professionals in terms of their shared purpose, and the profound role the industry has in bringing people together.
“I cannot overestimate how important what you do is — I really cannot,” said Brown, a fifth-generation Texan and Houston native, who works as a leadership consultant for companies that have included Microsoft, Disney, and Pixar. “The heartbeat of what we do is connecting — bringing people together in relationships, and creating that experience where people feel seen and heard.… It’s a sustaining driver for a lot of people that I talk to,” who need, she added, “the stuff that you pour your blood, sweat, and tears into.”
Brown has spent the past two decades studying emotions, including difficult ones like shame and vulnerability. What’s driven her, she’s said, is the conviction that “connection is why we’re here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.” And contrary to conventional wisdom, the willingness to be vulnerable — which includes acknowledging uncertainty — is a source of strength.
We’ve been taught that vulnerability is weakness, Brown said, in a funny, plain-spoken, and heartfelt conversation with Convening Leaders emcee Holly Ransom. “I think the thing is the level of uncertainty and complexity and trauma and healing that the whole world is in means that we are often going to wake up in the morning, roll out of bed, armor up and face the day — and that armor that we put on because it feels like the right and safe thing to do is what really gets in the way of real courage. Vulnerability is showing up and being all in when you can’t predict the outcome.”
Vulnerability is an emotion, Brown added. “It’s what we feel in times of risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure. The question becomes when you feel those things, do you reach for armor that’s going to move you away from your values, move you away from who you want to be as a leader? Or can you recognize that you’re in it and say, ‘Shit, this is uncomfortable. I need to figure out what’s going on. I need to stay aligned with my values and what’s important to me and I need to do the single next right thing.’ That’s it.”
In the 50-minute conversation, Brown also addressed the value of coming together at events like Convening Leaders, where participants would have three or four days to “get together with people where they don’t have to explain the shit they go through every day with their job. This is how we’ll build engagement,” in an often-disconnected world, she said. “This is what will thread you through the harder times. We are neurobiologically hardwired together.”
Barbara Palmer is deputy editor of Convene.