Courage in leadership is crucial
Fear is inevitable. Yet it can be beaten. It was Nelson Mandela who noted that courage is not fear’s opposite – but the strength that beats it. “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it,” the transformative South African president once said.
South Africa is the place of my birth, and the location where I quickly learned a similar lesson. All around us are things that scare us: yet bold leaders face into them. Courage in leadership is underrated. But it is imperative if we are to solve the challenges organizations – and the world – face.
Courage takes three forms. The first form is imaginative – the bravery to believe that change is possible. Courageous leaders rarely settle with the status quo: they imagine a better future and set out to reach it. Vision is the precursor of all achievement: only those that can envisage change can deliver it. Mandela himself was the embodiment of this, spending 27 years of Apartheid as a prisoner of the state. Yet through that time he was resolute that change was possible.
The second type of courage is disruptive: the determination to identify the obstacles to change – and remove them. This manifests in business as the leader who is willing to speak the truth in the boardroom to change her company for the better. It is the father who tells his daughter that though she looks unlike others at the top table, she belongs there too. It is the colleague who speaks out in their company when unfairness or shortsightedness are preventing talented others from progressing.
The third brand of courage is constructive: the courage to build bridges so others can cross. This is harder than it sounds. Organizations – even whole societies – are too rarely built with their doors open. It takes those with power to share that power; to bring others in, to build a table where our daughters and sons sit as equals.
None of these forms of courage seep naturally into our hearts and minds. We must proactively choose them, go and get them. At Duke CE’s recent Women Leading Change event in Johannesburg, I recalled the 20,000 women who in 1956 marched on the Union Building in Pretoria. They chose the pyramid of courage: the courage to imagine a better world; the courage to disrupt the status quo; the courage to construct the future.
Their race is run; their battle won. But vast societal challenges remain. Organizations have a clear and immediate role in combating the threats of our time. The climate is changing. Inequality is growing. Human rights are under attack. That is why courageous leadership is needed now more than ever. Business cannot thrive unless societies thrive; societies cannot improve unless businesses lead the way.
The easy way to front an organization is to follow it, not lead it: imagine no change, avoid disruption, construct nothing. But the easy route is always deficient in a world that is transforming at speed. Change is often terrifying. But the courageous face into their fear and find a better path.
“It always seems impossible until it’s done,” is a quote best associated with Mandela. It is as relevant now as it ever was. Any idea seems crazy until you make it real. Imagine, disrupt, construct: courage is the key to the future.
