Courage is a quality every great leader must possess. Courage is a quality every great employee must possess. Courage helps us endure hardships, deal with economic insecurity, and confront challenges.
Challenging economic times activate and propagate fear, but we can overcome fear with courage. In fact, fear is a prerequisite for courage. Even more good news is that courage is a learned skill. However, courage requires that physiological reactions to fear be effectively managed. The more this is practiced, the easier it is to display it.
The Courage to Try
The courage to try is the willingness to endure stressful, painful, or risky situations in pursuit of a goal, with the hope of a positive outcome. This includes innovation and initiating change. A common roadblock is a fear of failure. To overcome it, be planful rather than rash and develop a contingency plan. There is plenty of opportunity to practice your courage to try in professional settings. For example, develop new models and new ways of doing things when the old way is no longer working. Set stretch goals for your personal and professional life and pursue them with a sense of purpose.
The Courage to Trust
The courage to trust is a sort of interpersonal courage. It is exposing your vulnerabilities and striving to be authentic with others. Revealing shortcomings about yourself and/or your skillset is a courageous act. It is difficult to admit, “I don’t know how to do this” or “I am not sure I am doing the right thing.”
The Courage to Tell
The courage to tell is a learned ability to raise difficult issues or to share an unpopular opinion. This type of courage comes from having a confidence in your own talents and a belief that your opinion is valued. A common roadblock is the fear of rejection. To overcome, focus on the approval or rejection of the task, idea, or opinion, rather than the approval or rejection of the person. The most courageous are not only able to speak the truth, but they are willing to hear the truth as well.
Is Your Company Prepared?
- Is the skill courage on your learning and development agenda?
- Do your systems and processes encourage or discourage failure?
- Do you offer opportunity to practice courage?
- Are your courageous acts impulsive or decisive?
- What resources are avaialable to employees for emotional support when facing fear?
Quick Facts
- The French word courage means “heart and spirit.”
- Webster’s Dictionary defines courage as the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.
Quotes to Contemplate
“When two people in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.”
-William Wrigley
“The only real failure in life is the failure to try.”
-Anonymous
“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”
-Aristotle
“You must be afraid to have courage. Suffering is not, by itself, courage; choosing to suffer what we fear is.”
-John McCain in Fast Company, In Search of Courage
“Optimum performance occurs when people feel a certain level of arousal, fear, anxiety, and pressure, not when they’re feeling safe and insulated.”
-Merom Klein and Rod Napier, The Courage to Act
“In business, courageous action is really a special kind of calculated risk taking.People who become good leaders have a greater than average willingness to make bold moves, but they strengthen their chances of success through careful deliberation and preparation. Business courage is not so much a visionary leader’s inborn characteristic as a skill acquired through decision-making processes that improve with practice. In other words, most great business leaders teach themselves to make high-risk decisions. They learn to do this well over a period of time, often decades.”
-Kathleen Reardon, Harvard Business Review, Courage as a Skill
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What a profound reality you never think about:
“fear is a prerequisite for courage”
[...] Corporate Courage [...]