I believe that courage is the Final Frontier of leadership. Without courage, every other leadership quality is compromised and overall leadership ability diminishes. Leadership can only progress so far without courage. John Maxwell refers to this progress inhibiter as the “Rule of the Lid”. The Rule of the Lid simply states that a company or department can only become as good as it’s leader. If a leader lacks courage the company or department’s growth is limited. Courage has a major impact on not just the company, the department and the leader themselves, but also on all individuals connected, both internal and external to the company.
Courage Inspires…
Innovation because it sets an example of courage for others and ultimately displays character that provides an environment that others can look up to, follow and emulate.
Initiative because it takes away the fear of failure by those around the leader. Leaders showing courage have the heart to encourage others to grow, achieve and thrive by taking risks without fear of retribution.
Honesty because true courage is honest. It is honest about capabilities, mistakes and failures, biases and other shortcomings.
Transparency because it produces transparency. It takes courage to be transparent and not protective or guarded of one self. When teammates see transparency they will in turn be more transparent themselves.
Cooperation/teamwork because they are not fearful of their status within an organization and are more comfortable helping to create a culture of cooperation versus a culture of fear.
Change because there is trust where there is courage and the more trust that exists; the less resistant people are to change.
Courage because the leader has illustrated the example of courage. That example encourages others to follow and also facilitates an environment where less fear of retribution exists, thereby taking risks a more expected behavior tendency.
And courage changes EVERYTHING because it helps lift the lid off of limits and open up greater potential for everyone and everything involved with a particular situation.
Courage sets the pace and leads the way because it is often unique, refreshing, encouraging, motivating and also a new normal that produces positive results and builds a TEAM (together everyone achieves more) culture. That type of culture, though frequently talked about, rarely exists.
Leaders have to have courage to put others in front of themselves. A true leader cares less about status, title, position and protocol than the success of others. Leaders must have courage to make decisions for long term good that may have unpopular short-term implications. Sometimes difficult situations require that a leader go against the grain when the wisest decision, not the popular decision needs to be made.
Leaders have to have courage to ask for help. Some leaders are afraid of looking bad in front of others so they never ask for help. The same goes for all individuals. I remember being afraid to ask for help in Math class in elementary, high school and college. Guess what course I did poorly in? That’s right, and it was all because I was afraid to look bad and ask for help. We should all have mentors and also ask as many questions as it takes to learn as much as possible.
Leaders have to have courage to be themselves, because it takes courage to be unique. Most people don’t dare to be different, but the truth is we are each unique and are untrue to ourselves if we allow popularity or consensus to take us away from our uniqueness.
Leaders have to have courage to be transparent because revealing ourselves to others is scary business. Openness is not something that most of our predecessors or even many of our managers were accustomed to doing.
Leaders have to have courage to be vulnerable. Have you ever seen your boss cry? Perhaps, but more likely, they felt that they needed to be the strong one in sensitive situations. Just “Suck it up” is something I have heard many times. “Don’t let them see you crying” is another thing I have heard before. When I hear that now it makes me sad for those saying it as much as for those hearing it. It is OK to be vulnerable!
Leaders have to have courage to admit that they are wrong because most want to be the best at what they do in their entire department, team or even company. But you can only be the best if you learn from mistakes and everyone makes mistakes.
There are so many moments in our lives where we need to choose whether to allow fear or courage to dictate our behavior. By having courage, we choose to face our fear and do what is right, correct and most beneficial. And that is why courage truly is leadership’s Final Frontier.