In a world full of unexpected challenges, is there a need for Fearless Leaders, and is such a characterisation possible in business? There is no doubt that the quality of leadership caps the success of a business. But where does this context of fearlessness fit with leadership, and what does it look like?
Active Knowledge Question:
Would you consider yourself fearless, and where do your limits lie?
Courageous Not Fearless
I really don’t believe there is such a thing as fearless save for where our fight response kicks in, and we have no time for fear. I believe a better context is courageous, and courageous people are often described as fearless; these are people who contain their fear and step forward.
In business, courage is an essential trait in any worthy leader. If a leader cannot muster the courage, they will be unable to act and accept the risks to enable a business to achieve its goals. A leader who is scared of decisions and actions will be unable to lead a business through change or capture new opportunities.
Courage is a personal trait and rests within an individual. But it does not stand alone as a trait and is strengthened by a range of attributes. Here are a few examples of these integrated attributes:
- Motive: A leader’s motive is pervasive in how it influences their decisions and actions. If their motive rests more in self-interest – promotions, bonuses, profit-share, authority – then they are unlikely to possess the courage to build a ‘great business’. Decisions for change and seizing opportunities carry risk; the risk of failure. If their concern is principally with themselves, they are unlikely to be willing to step over that edge.
- Virtues: By virtues, I am referring to the values/attributes that a leader sets as their foundation as a person. Whom do they aspire to be as a person? What standards do they seek to hold themselves true to? For example, a person who sees the attributes of Courage, Determination and Humility as their defining traits will more like embrace decisions that take their business forward. Risk is a defining element of how they move.
- Conviction: Conviction refers to a leader’s belief in the value and righteousness of what their business does. If they truly believe in the value they deliver to their customers’ needs and their place in the community; then conviction will be strong. They will know within themselves that they need to step forward in serving their customers and the community and that it represents so much more than profit.
- Faith: Courage requires a faith in yourself and your organisation. A knowledge and a confidence that you can get things done. It may be challenging, it may even seem impossible at this point in time, but they know they can succeed.
There are also attributes that will drain and weaken a leader’s courage and which must be guarded against. Again, here are a few examples:
- False Pride: An excessive self-pride, a worry about what other’s think of you, an overwhelming desire to belong to a certain click in a community, a veneer of an image of whom you desire to be seen as – these are all elements that will weaken a person’s willingness to accept risk.
- Impulsiveness: Emotional responses to something that has occurred that has offended you, leading you to act without due thought and consideration.
- Recklessness: The partner of impulsiveness, acting without wisdom and due consideration to the merits of an action.
- Weak Discipline: A lack of willingness to enforce discipline in your life and that of the business. Motive, purpose, virtues, values, and culture are areas where discipline is necessary to sustain growth.
A leader requires the personal courage to make the calls to grow their business, but they also need to build the courage that exists within their business as a community.
Corporate Courage
Of course, if you want your business to contain and develop leaders with the courage to make the right and best decisions for the business, then you need to develop a culture of courage in that business.
A failure to make courage a cultural trait will only seed a generation of weak leaders, as any leader with courage will resign and find somewhere where their strengths are welcomed.
When you begin to reflect on corporate courage, you are considering the glue that will bind a community together and enable it to move forward with conviction and momentum.
At a corporate level, there are again key integrated attributes that will either seed and uplift courage or will ensure it never exists:
- Purpose: if you want to unite your community (everyone involved in your business), you must have a worthy purpose for your existence. That purpose lies in the customer need you seek to meet and how you frame that as your purpose. If it is righteous and something people can take pride in, then you have set the foundation. If purpose lies in profit-making or some language that no one understands or believes in, then conviction will not form. And without conviction, courage will not exist. When thinking purpose, always place motive beside it as they go hand in hand.
- Vision: Purpose is energised by a compelling vision. What is a compelling vision? One which draws a belief that it simply has to be delivered. And therefore, one which everyone wants to join. I like the language of quest when considering crafting a vision. Very few leaders are good at setting vision as they trip over the profit motive and think short-term rather than enticing images of what the future could be.
- Rewards and Barriers: Courage must be recognised and rewarded at the level and to whom exhibited it. This is the case whether it resulted in what is considered a success or a failure. How leadership and the community think about ‘failure’ is vital in supporting courage. The failure of the project to achieve an expected outcome should not be ridiculed or punished. Rather the lessons learnt should be recognised and those involved encouraged to step out and try again.
- Worthy leaders: If a business is not populated with worthy leaders, courage will never be present. Worthy leaders are essential to ensure the competitive engine that exists in any business is active, strong and in its ‘right’ character. Your competitive engine seeds, renews and strengths all the attributes that feed courage.
Businesses exist to compete. And to compete to their fullest potential requires courageous leaders and courageous people. The strength of such courage rests in the conviction held within that business that what it is doing is righteous and good for the community it serves. The business with the greater conviction will always outcompete all others.
An entirely new level of performance.
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All the best in the success of your business,
Richard Shrapnel
