Contagious Courage: How Brave Leaders Inspire Change

My courage series wraps up this month after covering what courage in the multicultural, distributed workplace looks like and how to develop it on a professional and personal level. This article will address leaders specifically and what they can do to continue to inspire courage throughout their organizations .

Imagine being an executive of a global company, and you've come to me at your wits end. I empathize as you list your employee woes: inefficiency, disconnected teams, and lack of accountability, engagement, and innovation. Walking into an office with this sort of energy can be soul-sucking, especially when your primary job seems to be fighting fires instead of tackling your own workload. "I don't understand why my employees don't just do their jobs. What are they so afraid of?" you ask, burying your head in your hands.

And this is where I tell you, gently but firmly, that your employees may not be your biggest problem.

The biggest problem could be you.

Courageous leaders are strong for a reason.

Courageous leaders shoulder most of the bravery burden, gathering their strength to push their teams in a unified direction. When strong leaders create a safe space for risk-taking , they also create a naturally welcoming environment for innovation, creativity, teamwork, and productivity. By backing the efforts of their teams, strong leaders also allow their employees to use the energy they would otherwise spend cowering or complaining toward more productive (and more rewarding) efforts.

This means creating a "yes, and" environment. What does that look like? It's a space that validates people when they provide input, brainstorm, or voice concerns. This doesn't mean you agree or take action with everything they say; rather, you confirm their comments and show you understand them while converting their concern to support the overall objective. The more the word "no" enters your management vocabulary, the more you shut down your staff's willingness and ability to engage. And the less they engage, the larger portion of their jobs you'll end up doing.

Of course, this "safe environment" is a mindset and not a physical location. Global companies in particular must embrace this concept across landscapes and time zones by investing in a dedicated effort to improve cross-cultural communication and collaboration . It can seem like a lot of work, and it is, but with proper training, guided practice, and practical advice, most leaders find that the rewards are worth the sweat equity. After all, the most difficult part of being a courageous leader is breaking the inertia of fear. Once you've switched directions, you can only gather speed.

Courageous leaders share their focus.

There are three things a courageous leader must be aware of, according to Daniel Goleman, author of the HBR article, The Focused Leader : Focus on self, focus on others, focus on the wider world. "Every leader needs to cultivate this triad of awareness, in abundance and in the proper balance," states Goleman. "Failure to focus inward leaves you rudderless, a failure to focus on others renders you clueless, and a failure to focus outward may leave you blindsided."

Inward and outward focus increases your emotional and cultural intelligence , which allows you to connect with others on a much deeper level. This connection is what creates a safe environment, the birthplace of risk-taking, which inspires independent work, innovation, problem-solving, collaboration, and more.

One of the favorite parts of my job in training executives and leaders of multinational companies is the profound impact cultural and emotional intelligence have on how people manage, how employees respond and learn in kind, and how the process continues to unfold throughout every level of an organization. While leading a group of executives in Singapore, I asked them to describe someone who had a profound impact on their lives and careers, someone who they considered a true leader. Later they engaged in an exercise where they described what they felt embodied successful leadership. After gathering responses from the executives, who encompassed seven different nationalities, a common theme merged into a single sentence: "A true leader goes the extra mile to touch peoples' lives positively."

Courageous leaders know how to put out fires permanently.

If you feel like you are constantly fighting fires in your job, it's time to take a look at who's lighting them. Failure to support, train, encourage, and relieve your team puts the matchstick in your hands.

In his article, Why Fear Kills Productivity , Tony Schwartz explains that it isn't the stress of a workplace that kills productivity, it's the lack of rest and renewal. "At the emotional level, the most powerful source of renewal is the experience of feeling valued and appreciated," he writes. "Which explains why studies consistently show that the most engaged employees are those who answer "yes" to the survey question "My boss genuinely cares about my well-being." When leaders deeply care, it serves their own interests as well as their employees."

Whether you are a leader of a multinational conglomerate or climbing your way up the corporate ladder at a local business, your ability to create contagious courage will define your success and the success of all you touch. The key to that success is knowing your vital and active role in it. If you want to see change, you must be brave enough to create it.