“High chance this decision will hurt me.”
No one says that out loud, but it's what we often think. This is why it’s so incredibly hard to be a courageous leader. But let's clear up a few misconceptions first:
Courage ≠ Stupidity
Taking unnecessary, oversized risks or rushing into irreversible decisions is just reckless.
Courage ≠ Heroism
There’s no valor in business. Heroes are born when clusterfucks happen. If you're a hero, you might save the day, but looking back, you’ll likely see a series of decisions and actions (or lack thereof) that could have been avoided. Heroes belong in wars, not boardrooms.
Courage ≠ Taking big, bold business decisions
Well, in most cases, for most of us, during most of our careers, this isn't the essence of courage.
Courage Is:
Dealing with your inner self, your fears, and your biases and interpretations of reality.
Offloading those cognitive predispositions so we can recognize and develop our emotional operating system.
Cultivating a quiet and stable inner core that can clearly hear our thoughts, desires, and surroundings.
Courage is ultimately expressed by the ability of an executive to take action or make a decision that confronts our core behavioral drivers: fears, uncertainty, failing, disappointing, losing, and even “overly” succeeding. It's about taking the chance that our actions will hurt us, emotionally or materially, and still doing it because it’s the right thing to do.