How many people saw courageous

Not every opportunity to display courage is worth taking. Importance, of course, lies in the eye of the beholder. It depends on your goals and values and those of your colleagues, stakeholders, and the organization itself. As you gauge whether an issue is truly important, be aware of your emotional triggers; allow yourself to be informed but not held hostage by them. Also assess whether engaging in a potential battle—whatever the outcome might be—is likely to aid or hinder winning the war.

Ask yourself, for example: Will securing resources to address this problem make it less likely that a higher-priority proposal will subsequently get funded? Competently courageous people are masters of good timing. To avoid being seen as a broken record, they are less likely to act if they recently cashed in hard-earned idiosyncrasy credits.

They scan the environment for events and trends that could support their efforts, making the most of an organizational change or the appearance of a new ally, for example. They stay attuned to attention cycles—to public upwellings of enthusiasm for the issue at hand. Pushing for a more globally representative strategy or leadership team, for example, was for a long time risky in many organizations; now companies are more open to tackling those issues.

Its reps were rude, dishonest, and manipulative, and the product itself was subpar. However, ties between the two companies were long-standing and included a friendship between two key managers.

By that point she had demonstrated her commitment to the organization, and she was better able to gauge the relationships between the people involved. She used the intervening time to collect evidence of the problems, identify alternative vendors, and quantify the improvements they could offer.

When she finally did make her proposal, the VP in charge responded positively. In some cases, conditions or events such as sagging sales or a change in leadership create urgency for courageous acts—and make them more likely to succeed. Tachi Yamada, a physician-scientist turned business leader, has been a master of seizing the day during a successful career as a senior executive in the health care sector.

Workplace courage is, of course, about more than preparation. Eventually you must take action. During this step, competently courageous people focus primarily on three things: framing their issue in terms that the audience will relate to, making effective use of data, and managing the emotions in the room.

They ensure that decision makers feel included—not attacked or pushed aside. Ashford and James R. Cialdini HBR, October Dutton, Susan J. Ashford, Regina M. Lawrence Academy of Management Journal, Gentile Yale University Press, Mel Exon, a former executive at the advertising firm Bartle Bogle Hegarty BBH , excels at framing proposals in ways that make them attractive to those whose support she needs.

For example, when Exon and a colleague first pitched the idea for an internal innovation unit—BBH Labs—to senior management, support was far from unanimous. This was a concerning in a firm that proudly considered itself the contrarian visionary in the industry, with a black sheep as its calling card. A lab focused on innovation would fulfill exactly that need. She won over others by describing the work of the new lab as advance scouting, promising that everyone at the firm would share in its findings.

Keeping your cool as you perform your courageous act can be just as important as how you make your case. But instead of taking the emotional bait, he reminded himself that their response was a normal reaction to fear of the unknown. Acknowledging their mindset helped him stay calm and concentrate on simply making data-driven arguments.

In the end, he was able to bring others around to his point of view, and the business made a strong pivot toward his recommended strategy. Those who exhibit competent courage follow up after they take action, no matter how things turned out. They manage their relationships with the people involved: When things go well, they thank supporters and share credit. When things go badly, they address lingering emotions and repair ties with those who might be hurt or angry.

For example, Catherine Gill made an in-the-moment decision to launch her campaign to change the culture at Root Capital during a retreat with about 30 leaders present. But as a result of her spontaneous decision, she caught the CEO off guard.

Competently courageous behaviors can be learned with effort and practice. Many people talk about connections between acts of courage and feelings of fear. How did these situations feel to them during the moment and afterwards? How might the courageous people they identified have felt during situations when they showed courage?

What can you share about feelings of fear related to your own examples? In her book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead , Brown asks us not to think about these kinds of feelings as weaknesses or liabilities but to instead recognize that situations where we feel vulnerable are often those that involve courage and risk.

Help young people consider the feelings involved with trying something new, speaking up as a lone voice, or asking someone for forgiveness. Emphasize the role of courage within the smaller acts of our everyday lives — like when we raise our hand to answer a hard question during class, reaching out to the new person in our 4-H group, or trying out for a new sport.

Help them develop skills to deconstruct and challenge these kinds of limiting messages when they see them in their surrounding media setting. Also encourage kids to look for examples in books, television shows, films and other forms of media that show young people acting in caring and courageous ways. Did you find this article useful? Previous and current studies indicate that bravery and courage are probably impacted by both nature and nurture.

More specifically, individuals who performed acts of heroism and bravery are more likely to be self-confident, be an older child, have a tendency to take risks and seek sensation, be less cautious, be more resilient, have a greater sense of humor, be a leader, have a deep sense of empathy for others, and attribute their success on the battlefield to training and modeling of others. Aristotle The Nichomachean ethics D. Ross, J. Urmson, Trans. Find this resource:.

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