Executive Courage

 ”The fearless are merely fearless. People who act in spite of their fear are truly brave.”
- James A. LaFond-Lewis

Courageously Courageous, by Barry Zweibel

 I recently had the opportunity to hear three short presentations about courage. The first one, given by Gallup Senior Scientist in Residence, Shane Lopez, PhD , dealt with courage and sport, who defined courage in terms of it being the “capacity to confront opposition”, “increased determination in the face of resistance,” “overcoming fear,” and “having lots of guts!”

As the audience shouted out answers to Dr. Lopez’ initial question, “What’s the most courageous moment in sports in the last 100 years?” it was interesting to consider how each spoke to the two parts of sports courage he highlighted:

• Physical Courage – Overcoming physical aggression
• Vital Courage – Rising to the occasion for the sake of the team

Cynthia Pury, PhD, from Clemson University, was the next speaker. In talking about how courage aided goal‐directed action planning, she described three main elements of courageousness‐in‐action:

1. That the actions taken have a noble purpose
2. That they have an intentionality about them
3. That they are taken notwithstanding the fact that one or more elements of objective fear surround them

To increase courageousness, Dr. Pury recommended:

• Focusing more on where you are in your plan to reach your goal and what needs to happen next
• Focusing more on the value of achieving your goal
• Focusing more on ways of decreasing the risk of action and/or better controlling your fear

She then identified several different types of courage:

• Illogical Courage – When there’s not a strong relationship between the action and the goal (like kissing the statue in the University’s quad so not to fail a test).
• Bad Courage – When the goal is noble to the actor, but the observer sees it as a *bad* goal (like suicide).
• Evil Courage – When the goal has strong negative moral connotations (like with terrorism or assassinations).
• Foolish Courage – When the value of the goal is not apparent to the observer and the risk is high to the actor (like bungee jumping or other daredevil actions).
• Modest Courage – When the actor downplays the risk, but the observer sees it as very high (A firefighter after having run into a burning building saying, “I was just doing my job.”).

The last speaker, Captain Paul Lester, from West Point, discussed creating what he called a “courageous mindset” and presented preliminary findings from his research from having soldiers reflect about times when they were most courageous, times when they knew they should have shown more courage, but did not, and lessons learned from practicing courageousness.

I, for one, found it very interesting to look at courageousness from so many different perspectives. It definitely added to my understanding and demystification of fear, fearlessness, and courageousness.  I hope that reading about it provided a similar value for you.

Learn more from the Self Study Materials on Courage and Fearlessness provided in the LeadershipTraction website.

Or, contact LeadershipTraction for more information on how to improve YOUR Executive Courage – and that of your Direct Reports.