Leading with Courage

We know in our heart what is important. We recognize the necessity of leading from an ethical base, having vision and dealing with reality. Today it is imperative to put into practice what you already know. To move forward calls all of us to courage. How do you find courage in yourself and others?

Effective leaders recognize that their organizations and teams benefit from personal growth. Typically, only fear would inhibit that growth. You cannot have progress when there is apathy, or when people feel they don’t make a difference.

Bringing out the best in people, especially with the current environment of insecurity and possible loss, takes the kind of leadership that can reason through these changing times with the equanimity of intuition and self-control. To meet these challenges it is important to help people develop the skill to say “no” to unhelpful reactions and “yes” to learning responses that embody effective leadership qualities such as:

• Appreciating efforts and abilities
• Streamlining decision-making and following through on “tough decisions”
• Encouraging greater participation and initiative
• Reconnecting with talents, abilities and creativity
• Bringing the best out of people as a group
• Preparing the next generation of leaders

The answer to “how” is developing courage you can call on at any moment: the courage to say “yes” to those ideas and thoughts that you know to be right. Moving forward successfully arises from your leading with courage and actively nurturing that courage in everyone.

Filed under A Full List of Postings, Courage on February 13th, 2006. Use this URL to trackback.