“The experience of Dare to Lead was so good and so difficult. It was very emotionally draining but also so empowering and rewarding. It was awesome to participate alongside some amazing colleagues where we could encourage and support one another in this difficult, but important work." - Rev. Amber Laffey

In the fall of 2021, Melissa Hiatt led a group of Dakotas clergy in a workshop that ignited their interest in coaching. The workshop was part of the Clergy Leadership Academy (CLA), and the workshop experience was so compelling the group knew they wanted a deeper dive.

Diane Owen

Diane Owen, the Dakotas-Minnesota Area Director of Clergy Well-being, helped by organizing the group and procuring the funding. “Using Higher Ground group coaching funds, the Conference invited the CLA group and then a few others for a robust group of 13 to participate in a series of group coaching sessions and a single day event. Each participant also received two one-on-one coaching sessions with Melissa. The coaching is centered around Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead process, in which Melissa is a certified facilitator.”

Melissa Hiatt shared a bit about discovering the Dare to Lead process, and how she felt naturally drawn into it. “I learned about Brené Brown’s work at the Global Leadership Summit in the Summer of 2013. When I read her book, Daring Greatly… it felt like Brené’s work was inside of me.  I have a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy, but instead of getting licensed as a therapist, I went into ministry. Because I am a systems thinker, I was very curious about people’s lives when they came for help or counsel. I began to see the power that secrets had in people’s lives, so much so that I would intentionally ask about secrets.  I could see the release when people shared the secret that was keeping them small and afraid.  So when I read Brené’s research about shame it was congruent with what I was discovering about secrets.”

Leadership consultant Melissa Hiatt

Hiatt finds many other correlations and has become certified in facilitating several methods of discovery and leader-building. The cohort of 13 Dakotas clergy completed the Dare to Lead program under Hiatt’s guidance, with the hope that they would become more emotionally healthy. That’s the basis for building up leaders, according to Hiatt.

“Most people know what to do and often do it, but the residual effect of doing the right thing is exhausting.  It leads to self-doubt, loneliness, isolation, etc.  This work helps people differentiate. To be wholeheartedly part of a community, while being separate. Their worth no longer comes from what people think, but what showing up and being brave in the context which God has called them.”

The goal of the Dare to Lead cohort was to teach the Four Skill Sets of Courageous Leadership:

1. Rumbling with Vulnerability
2. Living into your Values
3. BRAVING Trust
4. Learning to Rise

These skillsets can help a pastor to still feel, but not be defeated by criticism, and to objectively quantify praise, not letting it inflate them. They give them tools to re-center, to accept God’s deep love for them, independent of any external or internal conflicts.

“Shame is a sneaky thing,” Hiatt says. “[Shame] tells us we aren’t good enough; if we are being operated by shame, it is hard to change, and we can become immobilized.”

Through the videos and exercises, Hiatt takes the research-based teaching of Dr. Brené Brown and implements it into the pastors' own personal situations. In the coaching sessions, she guided pastors into this process. “It all starts with vulnerability,” Hiatt shared, “and learning to lean into the parts of life that are human and uncomfortable. We start by getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

Diane Owen said that the group was overwhelmingly positive about the experience. She said, based on the feedback so far, it is likely they will put together another coaching experience for another cohort of pastors later this year.

“One of the key learnings I took away from this experience is that there is no greater courage than being vulnerable,” said Rev. Amber Laffey. “It is so hard to be vulnerable to speak up for what you really need and express how you really feel as a leader, but it is courageous and very necessary...especially in the life of a pastor. I am a better leader because I am more self-aware and more confident in the leader that God created me to be.”

Melissa Hiatt tried to boil down some of the many impacts she observed with this cohort of learners, and how these will relate to their ministry:

• A deep grounded-ness in the truth that we are each loved and worthy of love and connection
• A release of crippling anxiety
• A recognition of the ways we armor up that separates us from the work and the people we want to serve
• A deep rootedness in personal values that help guide how people show up, rather than responding with armor due to fear and shame
• Clear boundaries about what is ok and what is not OK. A way to process boundaries for healthy connection, not disconnection
• An ability to own mistakes and make amends
• Less blame and judgment of themselves and others
• A recognition of the false beliefs we carry about ourselves and a way to let those messages go (Rising Strong Process)
• Renewed commitment to their calling
• Less action based on preservation and more action based on values and deep conviction
• Greater self-awareness
• Courage to have tough conversations

The Dare to Lead group of Dakotas clergy with their certificates and facilitator Melissa Hiatt.