The Olympia School District winter retreat opened with a facilitated session on leadership values, courageous conversations and the ‘‘armored versus daring’’ framework drawn from Brene Brown’s research.

Jolene Laughlin, the retreat facilitator, asked directors and staff to identify core personal values and to practice a set of community agreements for constructive conversation. The session emphasized ‘‘choosing courage over comfort’’ and encouraged participants to ‘‘stay in the messy middle’’ — that is, to tolerate uncertainty long enough to explore multiple perspectives rather than immediately seeking quick fixes.

Participants worked through guided exercises, including a self‑assessment of leadership habits (moving away, moving toward, moving against — Brown’s ‘‘shame shields’’) and a values exercise in which each person shared one or two values they wished to emphasize in leadership. Values that appeared frequently in discussion were curiosity, integrity, love, loyalty and risk‑taking. Several participants connected those values to specific board behaviors, such as the tension between responding quickly to constituent concerns and the need to preserve a coherent, district‑level approach to policy.

Board members and staff discussed the implications of these leadership practices for governance: how to hold tough conversations constructively, how to solicit high‑quality feedback from the community, and how to balance individual directors’ community ties with the collective stewardship role of the board. The facilitator also introduced a short, adapted assessment derived from Brown’s work to help directors identify armor‑related behaviors and where to focus development.

The session included a closing gratitude exercise (postcards to staff and teachers) and participants agreed to reconvene after lunch for policy governance work. The morning’s work was framed as professional development rather than a policymaking session; there were no votes or formal decisions resulting directly from the leadership exercises.