Bravery in Leadership

There’s good reason the most repeated phrase in the Bible is “Be not afraid.” Fear is an exceedingly common emotion, even among confident people and leaders. 

As a leader, there is a lot to be fearful of. Leaders commonly confront the unknown and navigate through situations they have never seen before. Situational challenges connected to potentially grave or disastrous outcomes naturally create fear. 

The workplace is replete with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and a host of other challenging qualities, all of which create some fear. The question is not whether a leader experiences fear, but rather how they handle it. That’s where bravery comes in. 

Brave leaders possess the mental and moral strength to face danger, risk, and fear by focusing on what needs to be done rather than on the potential consequences. In the words of Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., “Bravery is improvisation in the face of impending disaster.” 

Rather than letting fear rule one’s thinking and action, the brave leader pushes aside self-interest and survival and focuses exclusively on the actions required to conquer or overcome the challenge. As extreme surfer Laird Hamilton points out, the opposite of fear is not fearlessness but commitment. The highest form of commitment is an unparalleled focus on action rather than on emotion. 

If this is true, bravery can be practiced!

When a leader allows fear to take the wheel and direct their behavior, they succumb to thoughts of demise and the emotions connected to them. Once fear takes hold, it naturally produces more fear and the anxiety, doubt, and uncertainty associated with it. The spin of fear is difficult to break free from. 

The idea is not to let it grab a foothold to begin with. Instead, leaders who choose to be brave make a commitment to deny the future and engage totally in the present. They avoid all thoughts about the consequences, at least temporarily, and set their sights on how to defeat the challenge. 

What appears like an innate quality some leaders are born with is actually an everyday commitment to act rather than overthink. Bravery is a mental discipline that can be developed through everyday choices of extreme focus. 

By pushing aside the thoughts and emotions of future consequences and by focusing exclusively on the challenge at hand, leaders teach themselves to be brave. As a result, brave leaders aren’t afraid to voice their opinions, even when they go against the consensus opinion. They stand up to injustice and fight for colleagues who are judged too harshly because they are committed to do what is right without thought of what might occur later. 

Bravery is not a comic book virtue, nor do brave leaders pretend to be fearless. Instead, they practice being brave by facing challenges and taking risks through focused action rather than consequence. Brave leaders feel the bite of fear like everyone else. But, rather than succumb to it, they change their attention. 

The brave leader doesn’t wait for the future to judge them. They act on the present to create that future.