ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH?
I’ve been working with some of my clients on the issue of executive courage, the quality we’ve agreed is far more important and far more challenging to achieve than executive presence.
But the absence of executive courage? Now that really IS a challenge.
What are the costs of NOT bringing courage into your executive leadership? Here are a few we’ve landed on together.
❌ Stagnation, lack of innovation and missed opportunities
Without courage, you’ll avoid taking the necessary risks that lead not only to growth for your organisation, but growth for yourself. It takes courage to overcome fear of failure or mistakes and to stand up for and speak up for change that leads to growth.
❌ Erosion of Trust and Credibility
Without courage, you’ll avoid the difficult decisions that pretty much everybody — including you — know are essential for progress. Avoiding the challenging decisions means a lack of consistency in your leadership, undermining your credibility and the trust of your peers, team members and stakeholders.
❌ Perception of lack of integrity
When you don’t harness your courage to make the right decisions, to stand up for your values and principles, it’s not long before your reputation as a leader is damaged. It’s not fair, but women leaders are particularly harshly judged for inconsistency in their values.
❌ Weak Team Morale and Engagement
Your teams are likely to feel demoralised and demotivated if they see you avoiding addressing important issues or failing to advocate for their needs and ideas. They’ll lose confidence in you — and you’ll lose their best engagement and performance.
❌ Reduced Influence and Authority
Without courage, you appear indecisive and risk-averse. Your ability to influence others is diminished and your authority weakened, making it harder to garner support and drive initiatives forward.
❌ More workplace conflict
Avoiding conflict simply drives the conflict underground. When you lack the courage to address conflicts directly, you’ll find the unresolved issues escalate and disrupt team cohesion… leading to more conflict, lingering resentment and a toxic work environment.
Bravely tackling issues head-on takes courage, it’s true. But staying small and fearful, avoiding the tough decisions and tough conversations, ultimately leaves you and your teams in significantly scarier territory.
What have we missed? What other consequences come from allowing fear to conquer courage?
