Itās tempting to think of bravery as something extraordinary ā the preserve of a small band of heroes, dissidents, and whistleblowers who have the guts most of us donāt possess to do the right thing, make a stand, or speak truth to power.
But, in everyday life, there are frequent instances that call for courageous action, and very few of them are what you or I might describe as heroic.
We can all relate to this scenario. Several of your team are struggling with the same colleague. You all let their behavior go, even though it is offensive or harmful to the groupās performance.
The idea of confronting them feels too uncomfortable. They might get angry or dispute your version of events.
But one day, a team member decides to speak to the individual. It happens discreetly, āHey, we need to talk about this. Hereās why and hereās how Iād like to approach it.ā After that conversation, conditions improve.
Here, your peer acted with courage. She challenged the bad behavior, even though it probably felt risky. Does speaking up make her innately more courageous than you?
Or did she simply choose to take a courageous action, one that you did not, but could have done?
Courage is not a fixed trait or personality type. Courage is behavioral and can be learned and developed.
If we frame courage as a personality trait, it lets the rest of us off the hook. Those of us who werenāt born with the ācourage geneā are relieved of our responsibility to speak up. Itās far easier to leave it to the inherently brave among us to do the right thing.
This is problematic for two reasons. First, research by the US psychologists Albert Bandura, Rollo May, and others demonstrates that what we think of as courage is not a fixed trait or personality type.
Itās not a stock of something residing within us to be drawn from; nor is it an absence of fear. Courage is behavioral and can be learned and developed.Ā
Itās a capability we can learn to use to say or do something even when it feels risky ā to our career or relationships, to our standing with others, and even to our own safety or well-being.
Second, courageous action is needed far too often to leave it to a select few. The capacity to surface problems, address conflict, and deal effectively with difficult situations is required from everyone with power and responsibility: it should be the linchpin of your leadership, and not just because itās morally or ethically right.
Strategically, behaving courageously is the right thing to do for the well-being and performance of yourself, your team, your colleagues, your community, and your organization.
When leaders fail to act bravely, we know that people and organizations suffer. In my research and in my work reviewing and synthesizing the literature on courage, I have identified countless examples of what happens when we opt for silence.
Harassment and discrimination go unchecked, workers struggle, disengage or check out, churn intensifies, productivity flags, innovation falters, opportunities are missed and are handed to the competition.
Think of the crises that engulfed Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, or health tech startup Theranos over the past decade. These scandals were not a failure of strategy, intelligence, or talent.
They are examples of what can happen when bad behaviors or decisions go unchecked, when a culture of suppression or mute consensus is allowed to fester, and when fear has a stranglehold on courage. It fell to the actions of a handful of whistleblowers to bring decision-makers to justice.
Of course, these three are big-name organizations that will grab the headlines. But there are countless other examples of firms in every sector where culture makes it hard for employees to do anything but remain silent.
I interviewed 89 executives at a far less well-known tech company for a study published by Organization Science. My findings? Workers overwhelmingly described speaking up as “risky” or “futile.ā
Taking a legitimate concern to an immediate boss or a skip-level leader carried stakes that felt too high. These are cautionary tales.
When leaders normalize courageous action being accountable ā challenging wrongdoing, defending principles and people ā they signal that itās OK for others to do the same.
Just imagine how different things might have been if enough people had felt enough courage to speak up, knowing theyād be heard; to listen to the concerns of their teams or peers; to add their voice and hold a line ā and to do so early, collectively, and at multiple levels of the organization before things got out of hand.
Courageous actions do more than prevent escalation; they reshape organizational culture. I found, in research with Ethan Burris, that people take their behavioral cues from leaders.
When leaders normalize courageous action ā being accountable, challenging wrongdoing, defending principles and people, owning mistakes ā they signal that itās OK for others to do the same.
This sends a clear message: courage is not just the right thing to do; itās the norm. Over time, it takes less courage to do the right thing. If everyone is permitted and expected to speak up, it feels less risky to do so.
Work by my colleague Amy Edmondson (among others) shows that courageous leadership builds the trust and the psychological safety to change behaviors and yield better outcomes.
In place of silence and conformism, information flows upward and laterally across the business. Issues are surfaced, shared, and addressed earlier.
The same research shows that people feel empowered not only to voice their ideas or concerns but also to contribute greater creativity, to innovate, and learn from failure without fear of reprisal. Courage is better for business.
How do you learn to take more courageous actions? How do you build a culture of courage? How do you make bravery routine in your leadership?
Like getting better at tennis or playing the guitar, courage takes practice. You will only become more comfortable and adept at taking a stand by building your courage competence through habitual training and effort.
As you climb your courage ladder, reflect on how things went. Did certain techniques yield surprising results? How did the lived experience compare to the scenarios youād imagined?
When you are practicing courage as a leader, try to prioritize the following three points:
Find opportunities to try out courageous behaviors in āoffstage momentsā when the spotlight is elsewhere ā another team or colleagueās big stakes project or presentation, say. Share an opinion or give feedback instead of remaining silent. Starting small and in lower-stakes settings allows you to practice courage and trial strategies you may have learned ā breathing techniques, mindset recalibration, communication tools. You will find this easier when you are not under the glare of the spotlight and when you are physically and mentally more off duty. Use your courage ladder to articulate what lower-stakes scenarios look like for you and the kinds of courageous actions you would like to practice.
You might be tempted to take your courage ladder and write something like this: āI will start speaking up more in meetings.ā Instead, go to your calendar and look at the next three meetings you have. Add a reminder to review the agenda beforehand and identify a specific point you want to raise. Take a journal to the meeting that has your initial thoughts on this issue. Granularity matters because we donāt change our behaviors at the category level. Write down a set of particular instances when the opportunity for courageous behavior will arise.
Making your intentions public puts you on the line to see it through. Say you want to run a half-marathon. What will help you reach the finish line? Joining a running group, telling your friends and family you are going for it, and asking them to sponsor you. Take an item from your courage ladder and share it with a friend, a peer, or a colleague who can check in, follow up, and generally give you a sense of accountability. Again, start small. Look for something on a bottom rung and choose someone or a group that you are confident will support you, but who also expect you to see things through.
Courage feels difficult because it implies risk. These risks might be economic, social, psychological, or even physical. Will the action hurt your career ā could you end up sidelined for promotion or opportunity, or even fired?
Might it cost you allegiances or friendships ā ostracized by the team or the group? What if you look dumb, or your actions put you in the firing line with someone more powerful? Worse, could it expose you to physical harm?
My research (with Jennifer Kish-Gephart, Linda Klebe TreviƱo, Amy Edmondson, and others) finds that humans have a tendency to catastrophize.
We are hard-wired for survival; our limbic brain constantly scans for risk, prioritizing fear and threat over opportunity and reward. Itās all too human to feel paralyzed by the worst-case scenario as we contemplate speaking up or making a stand.
The good news is that, as with any other skilled behavior, we can strengthen our ability to act courageously and competently through training, practice, and reflection. Start with something small.
The psychologist Stanley Rachman is a pioneer in understanding the mechanisms of fear. His work helps clarify how fear can be attenuated through controlled, repeated, and graduated exposure to stimuli.
The idea is that we can develop greater tolerance for fear through habituation: by experiencing it repeatedly and to intensifying degrees, we gradually loosen its paralyzing hold over our choices and actions.
The key is not to rush at the big thing first, but to build resilience gradually in lower-stakes settings, working through each experience, then reflecting on how it felt and what we learned, and how we came out on the other side and survived the exercise. Based on this, Iāve developed a tool I call The Courage Ladder (Figure 1).
Climbing your own courage ladder means starting on the bottom rungs, where risks feel most manageable, and gradually building capacity through increasingly braver actions as you progress toward the top.
Taking measured, systematic steps up the ladder trains your courage muscle. You start with small acts of bravery ā e.g., setting boundaries around the timings of meetings or not responding to emails on weekends.
Ideally, you have also acquired specific tools to support your actions, such as a communication framework or an emotional regulation technique.
You reflect on how it went, what you learned, the interactions you had, the behaviors you deployed, and your own reactions.
A critical lesson is that you got through it: you can live with discomfort, awkwardness, distress, and even anxiety, and move past them.
As you ascend your ladder, habituation and learning equip you to manage your responses more effectively and build the resilience you need to meet the bigger challenges head-on.
Take heart. In my many years of working with leaders, there is one phrase I hear more than almost any other: āThat was way less scary than Iād made it out to be.ā Also incredibly common is: āIām glad I did it and have no regrets.ā
Time and time again, through practice and lived experience, people discover that being courageous is less terrifying and a much bigger boost to our self-esteem than we imagine. As psychologist Susan Jeffers put it: āFeel the fear and do it anyway.ā
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