4 skills you need for courageous leadership

This article is written by Jenn Lofgren CPHR, MCC, ICD.D for Incito Executive & Leadership Development .

Reading, studying and talking about effective leadership is way easier than actually leading. Leadership is a space of no right answers, tough conversations, setting an unknown direction, influencing others and uncertain outcomes. Taking responsibility for the future of your business and the people in it carries a weight that can either lead us off course or can be harnessed into great outcomes.

Yet, no great outcome comes without missteps, disappointments, challenges and failures along the way. Leadership requires courage, and courage requires a special kind of vulnerability.

Based on the work of Dr. Brené Brown , as detailed in her book?Dare to Lead , there are four skillsets for courageous leadership.

Rumbling with vulnerability

As Brené Brown says, "You can't get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability." This means having the courage to show up fully when you can’t control the outcome. It's about being vulnerable in your relationships with others in every meeting, email, phone call and face-to-face conversation inside and outside the workplace.

Vulnerability feels like being excited and afraid all at the same time. You feel you must do or say something, yet the inner voice you have tells you it might not be safe to do so. It takes vulnerability to delay action and step into a coaching conversation to help a team member find their own answers.

Leaders constantly need to work on stepping into tough conversations and providing honest and productive feedback, which requires this mindset. When it comes to providing feedback, remember the following:

• When you focus on clarity, you increase trust and decrease unproductive behaviour. Being clear creates more connection and empathy. Clarity also creates a boundary that allows the other person to decide what to do with the feedback.
• Know your triggers. When you’re triggered, do you try to control the situation, protect yourself or start people pleasing? Knowing this can help you move into a place of choice to step into vulnerability.

Living your values (rather than simply professing them)

Get clear on what you believe and check that your intentions, words, thoughts and behaviours align with your beliefs. Name your values by writing them down. Then identify core behaviours that represent how you might live those values. And, what are the behaviours that tell you that you’re off course?

Courageous leaders who live their values instead of just talking about them are never silent about hard things. For example, courageous leaders do not partake in willful blindness. As a leader, you must be aware of what is going on around you. You must realize when to act and know that sometimes you need to act in difficult situations. It takes courage to recognize these opportunities for leadership?and to set an example for your team. Making decisions that honor your values will be tough because doing the right thing is rarely easy.

Braving trust (and being the first to trust)

Now,?I’m?not advocating for blind trust,?which is a combination of a high tendency to trust and/or no limited consideration. I’m talking about smart trust,?which requires good business judgment and good people judgment combined to enhance your gut instinct and intuition.

Trust doesn’t come before vulnerability. They actually go hand-in-hand. Trust is built through small moments of vulnerability in a relationship developed over time and also comes from choosing courage over comfort.

Being a trusting and trustworthy leader means being someone people can count on to do what you say you will do, including acting within your competencies and limitations. Own your mistakes and make amends. Accountability means that when there is a misstep, you’re willing to ask yourself, “What part did I play in this?”

Stephen M.R. Covey, author of The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything , tells us:

• In business, trust increases speed and thus decreases costs.
• Trust means confidence. You first have to trust yourself.
• Businesses should create value for others to cultivate societal trust.

Lastly, being vulnerable does not mean being a completely open book and taking down walls. On the contrary, setting boundaries for yourself and your team can help set an environment for trust.

Learning To?Rise?

How you talk to yourself when things go wrong matters a great deal. Ask Carol Dweck, author of the book?Mindset: The New Psychology of Success . Looking for fault shows a fixed mindset; learning to become better the next time around shows a growth mindset. When something goes wrong, study the situation and find what is fact and what you are interpreting to fill in the blanks. Recognize the emotion that comes up for you, and get curious about it. Notice when one of the three most dangerous stories show up: those that diminish your worthiness, faith and creativity.

The most important aspect of courageous leadership is choosing how we respond to fear. Will you go autopilot and protect, control, or people please and appease?

Next time you're called upon to lead courageously, remember to "rumble with vulnerability" by showing up fully, living your values, being the first to trust and learning to rise when things don't go according to plan.

The original version of this article is found in The Inspired Leader . Compiled from more than a decade of coaching sessions with hundreds of leaders across diverse industries, The Inspired Leader serves as a comprehensive resource for both emerging and seasoned leaders alike.