While some contest, or outright refute, whether or not former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said “success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts,” the power of that statement looms large irrespective of origin. Amid the wildly unforeseen fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, this quote is rather prophetic. It speaks to prosperity not being taken for granted and the notion that failure in and of itself isn’t a death knell. Relative to business, specifically, it also evokes many questions about the very nature of “courage” — a concept often characterized by the demonstration of “strength in the face of pain or grief.”
Of course, it’s presumed that successful
leaders can and should inherently be courageous, but in what
exact regard is courage a
mission-critical managerial quality? To what extent should a leader exude
courageousness versus humility? What actions, or results thereof, exemplify how
courageous — or not — a leader is? Can a wholly well-intentioned show of
courageousness backfire and end up doing more harm than good?
We’re currently living in an unprecedented, decidedly challenging point in time
when courage seems to be the order of the day. In an attempt to garner some
crystal clarity on how this is actually defined and perceived when in practice,
I took these and other questions to an assortment of experts and leaders in the
business community. The result of that outreach is as eye-opening as it is
inspiring, with salient inputs including this top-line wisdom.
Stick to your guns. By its very nature, the notion of courage connotes danger and evokes a
sense of fear. Were there not peril, valor need not be required. To this point,
Douglas A. Hicks, dean of
Oxford College of Emory University,
underscores that courage not only enables someone “to take risks that others
fear in order to achieve something important,” but also that doing so requires
a backbone. “Courage is not about sticking one’s finger in the air to see which
way the wind is blowing, what others are saying. It requires both
self-confidence and resolve. CEOs show courage when they commit to keep
employees on the payroll in (the) face of recession and do whatever it takes to
create long-term profitability,” he said.
Stacy Caprio
of
Her.CEO concurs,
offering that “a courageous leader has the ability to look at the data and make
decisions, even when these decisions go against the grain of public opinion,
the media, and general public panic. Not many leaders have this ability, but a
true leader is able to make decisions independent of mass fear and panic.”
For those businesses that aren’t exactly linear with some kind of denotable
beginning and end, instead operating as a continuous, ever-evolving process
(like health care, education, and financial management),
Nicola Wealth Chairman
and CEO John Nicola urges that “courage comes from the consistency of your
message, your ability to support it, and the loyalty of your people delivering
it in all environments.” Not only germane to one’s actions, Nicola points out
that moxie also manifests in a passive sense by “choosing to do nothing in the
face of unrelenting pressure to act.” This as a courage of conviction, based on
principles of an individual leader, a leadership team or the company at-large.
Amid the ever-unfolding coronavirus-driven challenges and during prior
catastrophic events like the “dotcom crash” and the Great Financial Recession
of 2008, Nicola has leaned on corporate ideology for sustenance. “During each
of these periods we were under pressure to sell as markets dropped, to not rebalance
and try and catch a falling knife, to go into cash and ride out the storm,” he
said. Yet, Nicola instead mustered his courage and chose to “to do what we
believed the right thing to be was” — a decision he says ultimately resulted in
significant performance benefits for his firm’s clients.
How important are these kinds of instincts? Southwestern Family of Companies CEO Dustin Hillis knows all too well, lamenting a time at the company when he had doubts about the sustainability of the business model — multiple facets therein — at that time. “Instead of having courage and actually boldly testing new models, and at the risk of my own income and reputation, I went against what my instincts were telling me. As a result, we went $1 million in debt and almost had to shut the business down. Making the pivot to change the model to what we ended up ultimately doing with coaching and consulting was twice as hard as it would have been two years earlier when I first had the thought. But I did not have the courage to actually take action on what the numbers, the feedback and my instincts were telling me."
With this, it’s understandable that Hillis currently defines courage as “being afraid and taking action anyway.” He also advocates owning and being daring amid that distress. “True leaders are the ones who acknowledge they are afraid and up against a significant challenge, and yet they persevere and double down on activity during the hardest of times,” he said.
Jennifer McCollum, CEO of leadership development firm
Linkage, further
substantiates that courageous leaders stick steadfast to their personal
standards. McCollum cites her firm’s research findings, which she says are
drawn from 100,000 leadership assessments with data from more than one million
leaders, revealing specific behaviors that make a leader courageous. One of the
three found is “acts in alignment with personal values in challenging,
conflicting or ambiguous situations.” With courage as a character trait not to
be discounted as a key determinant of a leader’s overarching achievements,
McCollum clarifies that, through her firm’s study over 30 years on what the
most effective leaders do, “we know courage is a critical leadership practice
that differentiates the most effective leaders from the rest.”
Embrace vulnerability. According to Aaron Velky, CEO of
Ortus Academy, courageous
leadership includes the decision to be truthful and vulnerable. “Whether or not
the truth is easy to share and whether or not you know what speaking the truth
will create as an outcome, courage is the ability to offer up where you are and
what is real so that someone can process it individually.” Bravely delivering
hard messages is not enough, however, as Velky goes on to clarify that, “When
we share truth we have to be prepared to listen, but listening is vulnerable,
and that's important too. Courage is owning what we are experiencing.
Vulnerability is sharing it — the good, bad, and emotionally jarring.”
Being able to admit and share regarding future uncertainties also speaks to
vulnerability as a facet of courageous leadership. In fact, Velky says that the
decision to acknowledge not only what is truthful and known, but also the
unknown, is another distinct decision a brave leader makes. To demonstrate
courage, Velky asserts that one needs to be fiercely committed to recognizing
what and how much you don't have figured out. “Stating the unknowns mitigates
the toxicity that is felt when you hide fears and the reasons to have them.
Fears are OK, the unknown is OK — once you acknowledge it.”
One business leader who’s walking that highly-exposed walk of vulnerability is
Mylen Yamamoto Tansingco, CEO of
Cropsticks — a
social and environmentally-minded B-Corporation operating in the foodservice
and hospitality industry. “I do not have all the answers and I'm not going to
pretend I do either,” she’s refreshingly quick to admit. As case in point,
Tansingco publicly shared what Cropsticks is currently going through amid
COVID-19. In her YouTube video titled “
Can my business survive?,” she
shared her company’s small business story in endearing, unguarded and highly
personal form. “I'm hoping to keep our community motivated and feel seen during
this time,” though she understands this is not without some level of risk. “I
hope it doesn't become a ‘courage fail’ after this all over,” she said. Yet she
took the leap of faith into that unknown anyway.
Fortune 500 speaker, writer and coach
Heather Coros contends
that courage is contagious. She emphasizes that curiosity and innovation is
only accessible in the brain when a sense of safety is present. “If you’re
expecting your team to lean-in, then they need something that feels safe to
lean against. By being that safe space, you give the gift of strength and
vulnerability to the entire team. And as we know, vulnerability is essential to
highly preferred skills like transparency, clear communication and team
cohesion.” Perhaps most importantly in this post-pandemic era is Coros’
estimation that “courageous leadership creates a sense of stability amidst the
chaos.”
Be undaunted. Wonder Woman Writer, LLC, feels
that being a courageous leader is accomplished by having unwavering poise. “You
have to believe in yourself
and your idea no matter how the person in the
room reacts or not,” and “trust that you're talented and smart enough to figure
it out and still accomplish the task at hand.”
Mike Zaino, President and CEO of
TZG Financial, likens this kind
of requisite resolve among organizational leaders to that of an underdog
continuing to fight with relentless persistence despite prior outcomes. It’s
“getting knocked down seven times, and standing up eight,” he says. Yet, such
doggedness should not be above reproach, as Zaino further points out that it
certainly takes courage to not just hear — but accept — constructive criticism.
“You’re either learning or you’re dying,” he says.
The idea that courageous leadership requires a willingness and ability to fail
and “get back up again,” no matter how many times it need be performed, is one
that’s shared by
Mercy Project CEO
Chris Field. What particularly captures my imagination is Field’s belief that,
for courageousness to be a leadership asset, it must be a concerted choice — a
daily decision — rather than happenstance. “Courage is a muscle, one we must
exercise and grow by being courageous ... one decision at a time,” he submits.
“Courage takes many forms, but none of them happen by accident.”
While conveying courageousness certainly takes chutzpah,
Women
Presidents’ Organization
CEO Camille Burns cautions that it’s
important to exude confidence without arrogance. “I think people often confuse
risk-taking with being courageous,” she said. “Taking a risk is a bold move.
But it is even more courageous to fail, to accept that something you tried did
not have the outcome you wanted or expected.”
Even so, risk-taking does certainly take its fair share of bravado and duly
illustrates leaders with this attribute. Tim Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of
NerdWallet,
points out the prospect for growth moments during times of crisis — namely the
one we’re currently immersed in. He appreciates the extent to which COVID-19 has
ushered in a defining time for business leaders, offering, “Even though we’re
navigating unprecedented uncertainties, I see this as a huge opportunity for
the type of courageous decision-making and smart risk-taking that leads to
immense personal and professional growth,” he said. “In fact, I can track most
of my greatest periods of personal growth to a prior crisis.”
Crises aside, Chen’s colleague Kelly Gillease, NerdWallet CMO, sees an
opportunity for courageous risk-taking with frequency. “Great leaders exhibit
courage in small ways every day by encouraging risks and bigger thinking or
being vulnerable and empathetic when a situation calls for it,” she said. As
for the afore-mentioned chutzpah, “having a willingness to call out the
elephant in the room” is also courageous behavior that Gillease indicates she
strives to model.
When endeavoring to connote courage, attitude is also the name of the game.
It’s important to temper said chutzpah so that it doesn’t come across as overly
audacious. A haughty demeanor is never one that’s particularly welcomed in
business, but this kind of disposition can veritably doom an executive’s
image — especially when attempting to navigate a gaffe. “When someone does not
acknowledge what they do not know, or the mistake they have made, it is a
courage fail,” Burns warns. “Sustained naivety is when you deny the fail, or
when you try to blame it on someone else or block out the writing on the walls.
If there is no learning derived from failure, there is no achievement. Then, it
is a double failure.”
It's apparent that courageous business practices are guided not just
by guts and grit, but also by focused and unwavering guidance that keeps a
leader on course. Just ask Field, who muses, “Courage is knowing our North Star
and regularly checking to make sure we're still headed there.”
Forbes Business Council Official Member Merilee Kern, MBA is an
internationally-regarded brand analyst, strategist and futuristwho reports on
noteworthy industry change makers, movers, shakers and innovators across all
B2B and B2C categories. Connect with her
at
www.TheLuxeList.com and www.SavvyLiving.tv / Instagram www.Instagram.com/LuxeListReports / Twitter www.Twitter.com/LuxeListReports / Facebook www.Facebook.com/LuxeListReports / LinkedIN www.LinkedIn.com/in/MerileeKern.
