Brene Brown

Introduction

Brené Brown is a Big Love Leader in a different form than the typical CEO case. Her “organization” is a movement built from research, language, and teachable practices that have changed how leaders talk about courage, trust, belonging, and accountability. She is also not simply a public intellectual. She has built an operating model for organizational adoption through a leadership development and culture change platform, including piloting Brave Leaders Inc. and scaling Dare to Lead through a global network of independent Certified Dare to Lead Facilitators.  

Through the Big Love Leadership lens, Brown strongly embodies all five P’s, with her clearest strengths in Purpose, Presence, People, and Processes. Performance is evident through reach and adoption more than enterprise P&L results, because her impact primarily comes through influence and implementation by others.

🟢 Purpose

Brown’s work consistently centers the idea that leadership is about human dignity and meaning, not power or performance theater.

She frames leadership as responsibility for developing potential: “A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential.”  

Her broader purpose language is explicitly rooted in love and belonging as fundamental human needs, not optional “soft” add ons. Her purpose is stable across audiences. executives, educators, parents, and community leaders all get the same core message: courage and connection are the work.

🟢 Presence

Brown models the kind of “love in action” presence you describe: grounded honesty, emotional courage, and accountability in hard conversations.

She is direct about clarity being an act of care, not cruelty. In her own writing she argues that avoiding clarity is not kindness, it is unkind and unfair.  

She also anchors presence in emotional truth telling. In her TED work, vulnerability is defined as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure,” and she emphasizes that leaders must be willing to “show up and be seen” without controlling outcomes.  

Explicit use of the word “love”

“Love” is central in her public language, including “love and belonging are irreducible needs” and “worthy of love and belonging.”  

She even explicitly connects love to vulnerability, calling love “uncertain” and “risky,” and naming the emotional exposure required to love as vulnerability. She is not known for command and control leadership. Her work actively challenges “armored” leadership and encourages trust, learning, and shared accountability. A practical tension to name is that some organizations adopt the language of vulnerability while retaining command and control systems. That gap is an implementation issue, not her stated model, but it matters to Big Love outcomes.

🟢 People

Brown’s strongest Big Love signature is how she treats people as whole humans, and gives leaders tools to build belonging without lowering standards.

Her Dare to Lead framing is explicitly relational and developmental, and she positions courage as a skill set that can be learned, which is inherently inclusive. She also makes dignity operational through feedback norms and “rumbling” with hard topics rather than avoiding conflict.  

Her influence is visible in how widely her concepts have entered leadership culture, from trust language to vulnerability norms. Her TED talk is among the most viewed globally, reflecting sustained adoption at scale.  

🟢 Processes

Brown is unusually strong on Processes for a thought leader because she does not stop at inspiration. She has built a repeatable system for leaders to learn and apply. On her official timeline, she states: “We pilot Brave Leaders Inc.” and describes spending most of her time doing “leadership development and culture change work.”  

Her model scales through a network of independent Certified Dare to Lead Facilitators who “offer workshops, trainings, and coaching” to bring the curriculum into organizations.  

This is Big Love made visible through process: standardized skill sets, shared language, and repeatable practice, rather than vague culture statements.

Ecosystem partnerships and distribution

Her speaking requests are operationalized through SpeakersOffice, which she explicitly names as the channel for booking. More recently, she has partnered with BetterUp, serving as Executive Chair of its Center for Daring Leadership, expanding distribution through a leadership platform.  

Certification and curriculum do not guarantee humane leadership if organizational incentives reward fear, speed, or blame. The Big Love risk is “vulnerability theater,” where people are asked to share feelings without psychological safety or real power sharing. Strengthening guardrails and manager accountability is the protective move.

🟢 Performance

Because Brown is not running a single enterprise like Patagonia or Unilever, performance is best read through reach, durability, and measurable adoption of tools and language.

Evidence of outcomes and impact

Her work has scaled across multiple media and institutional channels: a Netflix special, ongoing podcasts, and a large global audience for her TED work.  

BetterUp’s profile of her notes she has authored six #1 New York Times bestsellers and that her vulnerability TED talk ranks in the top tier globally by views, signaling long term market adoption.  

Conclusion

Brené Brown is a Big Love Leader. She explicitly uses the language of love and belonging, and she treats courageous leadership as a practice of care, clarity, and accountability rather than charisma.   What makes her especially relevant for your taxonomy is that she has operationalized Big Love into systems: curriculum, assessments, facilitator networks, platform partnerships, and clear communication norms.  

Her case example also offers a critical Big Love lesson: love based leadership scales only when the surrounding systems reward it. Where organizations retain fear based incentives, Brown’s work can be adopted in words while resisted in behavior. Big Love leadership requires both the inner work and the operating system.

References and method note

This analysis was conducted by ChatGPT using the Big Love Leadership criteria you provided.

Brené Brown, Dare to Lead hub and leadership definition.  

Brené Brown, “About” timeline noting piloting Brave Leaders Inc.  

Brené Brown, “Become Dare to Lead Trained” describing independent Certified Facilitators delivering workshops and coaching.  

BetterUp, “Find a Dare to Lead Facilitator” and BetterUp Center for Daring Leadership overview.  

Brené Brown, “Speaking” page stating SpeakersOffice handles requests.  

TED and TED transcript materials on vulnerability definition and reach.  

Netflix title page for “Brené Brown: The Call to Courage.”  

Brené Brown posts and quotations referencing “love and belonging” as irreducible needs.  

BetterUp profile noting authorship and global reach of her work.