Contents
Finding the Courage to Lead
Courage Is a Mindset
Courage Is Within Everyone
You Have to Care
Challenges Call Forth Courage
Brick Walls Test Commitment
Take Initiative
Failure Is Important to Courage and to Success
Leaders Are Great Learners
Cultivate Resilience
Get Started with Courage Conversations
About the Authors
Copyright © 2013 by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner.
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ISBN 978-1-118-81460-4 (paper); ISBN 978-1-118-82574-7 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-118-82558-7 (ePub)
Leadership doesn’t happen without courage. In fact, leadership might be defined as courage in action. But the truth is that courage is both poorly understood and not what you typically think it is.
Courage is one of those big, bold words. Courage has the reputation of being something way out there on the edges of human experience, commonly associated with superhuman feats, life-and-death struggles, and overcoming impossible odds. It gives rise to images of daring acts of bravery and nerves of steel. It has such a mystique about it that many think the concept doesn’t apply to them. But when you look beyond the headlines, you find out that this account of courage is certainly not the whole story. It’s not even most of the story. And it’s definitely not what we uncovered in our research on courageous leadership.
Surprisingly, there is very little relevant discussion of courage in the leadership literature. For all the talk about how leaders need to be courageous, there is next to nothing written about what it really means for leadership. That’s not to say that no one writes or talks about courage. The dialogue on courage is ancient. It’s just that those who have written and talked about it are generally philosophers and historians, and for most people philosophy and history are subjects they stopped reading after those mandatory classes in school. It’s our intention with this short book to offer a perspective on what ordinary leaders tell us about what courage is to them, and what their courageous experiences mean for the daily practice of leadership.
But first, let’s reflect on what some of those early deep thinkers had to say that is relevant to a contemporary discussion of courage.