Fear is inevitable. Courage is a choice.
What if leaders at every level exercised Courage? A CEO or a Police Chief who exercised Courage. A middle manager or a shift supervisor who exercised Courage. A new hire or a recent police academy graduate who exercised Courage. Now imagine that the entire company or the entire agency or your entire family exercised Courage. What would that look like? What would it be like to be part of that? What would be accomplished?
Top Leaders would:
● Admit their mistakes and take responsibility for the mistakes of their organization.
● Coach and develop the people who could someday take their place.
● Create an environment where people can and will feel they can argue with them without retribution.
● Follow through on the consequences for poor behavior or performance no matter who is the offender.
Middle Leaders would:
● Admit their mistakes and take responsibility for the mistakes of their team.
● Coach and develop the people who could someday take their place.
● Create an environment where people can and will argue with them without retribution.
● Follow through on the consequences of poor behavior no matter the offender.
Entry level personnel would:
● Admit their mistakes and take responsibility for learning from them.
● Mentor and develop their peers who could someday work for them or they could work for.
● Accept feedback and critique without arguing or holding a grudge.
● Be willing to speak up when you witness poor behavior from a peer or a supervisor.
Now, imagine all of this was happening in your workplace, in your family, in your community. Think about that. Where would trust be in each of those places? What would productivity be like? How would we grow as individuals, as teams, as families and as a society?
To be a Leader of Character, a Team of Character, a Family of Character or even a Society of Character – Courage is the fulcrum that makes character happen. Without the Courage of leaders at all levels, character will never be more than a discussion item in ethics courses in our universities.
Fear is inevitable. But Courage is a choice. Each time we choose Courage, it makes it easier to make that same choice again. When we do, we inspire others to choose Courage as well and our opportunity to change ourselves, our teams, our families and our society becomes a reality.
Dig Deep Questions:
● Where can you exercise the Courage and begin to make change happen?
● Who needs to see you exercise Courage so that they would get inspired to do the same?
Making a shift towards taking responsibility and living with Courage is a lifelong journey. We want to partner with you as you practice the habit of Courage daily, which is why we have created our Habits of Character Action Guides.
The Courage Action Guide offers you a month of daily, interactive training complete with a daily reading, dig deep questions, weekly processing guides and instructions on how to use the guide both individually and with your team. The Courage Action Guide is now available here.
We are behind you, championing for you, your teams and your organizations as you become the leader you wish you had. We want to come alongside you as you grow to confidently answer “yes” to the question, “Would you follow you?”
