The Discipline of Courage

By Dr. Peter Chee & Brian Tracy

This is the 8th chapter of ITD World's 12-part newsletter series: 12 Disciplines of Leadership Excellence.

Vision and courage are the two qualities that all leaders have in common. True leaders have the courage to do whatever necessary to achieve their vision. The development of courage in a leader is essential to realizing his/her full potential.

Courage is the Golden Mean

Aristotle once described courage as the golden mean between the extremes of impetuosity on the one end, and cowardice at the other end. To move from one extreme to the other, one has to act as if he already had the virtue of courage in every situation necessary. By continually acting that way, you will eventually trigger the thoughts and feelings that would shape your personality.

Everyone is Afraid

Everyone is afraid - the only difference is in the things we are afraid of and the degree of intensity. The two greatest fears we all share are failure and rejection. The only way to free yourself from fear is to do what you fear. It is for you to move toward the fear-inducing circumstance/ person. As you do, your own fear actually becomes smaller and more manageable. Otherwise, it will grow larger until it dominates your thoughts and feelings.

Identify Your Biggest Goals

One question we often ask in our seminars is "What one great goal would you dare to set for yourself if you knew you could not fail?". If you were absolutely guaranteed success in any one thing in life, what one great goal would you set for yourself?

Another question is "What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?". Often, your answer indicates what you are really meant to do with your life, and the role that fear plays in your current decisions.

The biggest fears that most people have today break down into financial fears on one hand, and fear of confrontation with difficult people on the other. Many companies get into serious difficulties because of the top executive's fear of dealing with a negative/ underperforming person in a key job.

You can reduce financial fears with better planning and by organizing your financial life. You can resolve your fears by confronting the difficult people in your life and putting an end to the situation. When you confront your fears, your self-confidence immediately improves.

Where Courage is Required

Courage is required in several areas of business life. The first one is in decision making. It takes courage to make important decisions that involve irrevocable spending of money and resources - especially when the outcome cannot be guaranteed.

Leaders do not like to fail. But they know that failure is inevitable in the pursuit of sales and profits. It is impossible to succeed without failing until you learn the vital lessons for success at a high level. The key is to "fail forward", which means using trial and error to enable your team to learn and move forward.

Types of Decisions

Decision making is a key skill and responsibility of leadership. It is important to recognize what type of decision you need to make:

1. Decisions that you have to make: These issues are your chief responsibility. Nobody can make them. If you don't, others cannot, and the whole system will stop.
2. Decisions that you don't have to make: Sometimes you can simply remain neutral, or buy time, rather than making decisions you cannot then get out of.
3. Decisions that are not yours to make: These decisions are the responsibility of someone else. One of the best ways to build competence and confidence in people is to delegate decision making to them, and then work with them through the process.
4. Decisions that you cannot not make: In the absence of a decision in this area, nothing gets done. Progress stops, and no advancement is possible.

If you are experiencing fear about making decisions, start doing more research and gathering more information.

Risk Taking

Another area where courage is required is risk taking. As a leader, you face several types of risk:

1. The risks you have to take: No progress is possible without moving forward into the unknown.
2. The risks that are not yours to take: They are the responsibility of someone else, like hiring a new person.
3. The risks that you can afford to take: The upside can be especially positive, while the costs are low and the downside is small.
4. The risks that you cannot not take: These risks involve possible loss, but the upsides are so great if you succeed that you must take this type of risk.

Analyze each risk and determine its category. This will help reduce your fears and increase your courage.

Two Parts of Courage

The first part of courage is the courage to begin - to launch, step out in faith, to "go boldly where no man has gone before". The second part is to endure - to continue, persist in the face of inevitable short-term failure and temporary setbacks. Named as "courageous patience", this part of courage is the ability to hang in there, to be determined - particularly in the period between when you launch a new product and when you experience any result.

"Stay the course!" has always been an excellent piece of advice. Often it is too early to tell whether your decision is going to succeed. It is amazing how many people lose heart and pull the plug on an initiative just before it succeeds. As Ross Perot said, "Many people quit just before succeeding. That's not the time to quit, but the time to exert even greater effort."

The development of courage is essential to your success as a leader. You can eventually become fearless and unstoppable by practicing some of these ideas - until they become entrenched habits of both mind and action.

Now it's time for some Action Exercises

1. Identify one area/ situation in your life where fear may be holding you back, and resolve today to confront and deal with it once and for all.
2. Think of the biggest risk you are taking in life today and determine if it is your risk to take, or if it is too big a risk to take.
3. Identify the most important decisions you will have to make in the future, and determine what would you decide if you had no fear of failure.
4. In what areas of your life and work could the fear of rejection/ criticism/ disapproval be holding you back from taking action?
5. In what area do you need to act boldly, to launch into a new endeavor, even if you have no guarantee of success?
6. In what areas do you need to endure, persist, and keep on working - even if you feel discouraged?
7. Identify the 3 most important lessons you have learned from failure in the past, and how they have helped you to be a better person today.

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Stay tuned to our upcoming newsletter to delve deeper into the 9th discipline: Caring about People.

Wish to scale up your Leadership skills for Sustainable Growth? Get for yourself a paperback handbook now - written by Dr. Peter Chee & Brian Tracy.

More opportunities for Leadership Excellence

At ITD World, we believe that leadership is a competency that can be learned and mastered. We also believe that leadership is influence and through the behaviors and habits developed in our training programs, you may have a better chance of increasing your influence and leadership effectiveness.

This September, we are hosting a special once-in-a-year event - Global Leadership e-Summit (GLS). At this conference, leaders from all over the world are gathered together to network and share insightful experiences in leadership during crises.

In collaboration with ITD World, 5 MEGA GURUs will be there to host the event and help attendees scale up their leadership skills.

Learn more about the Global Leadership e-Summit (GLS) 2020 here: https://itdworld.com/global-leadership-esummit-2020/

For more tips on leadership and management during crises, explore our in-house leadership & HR solutions - provided by the TOP GURUs in the world.

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