“Holding the hill” when under fire can be a terrifying and lonely experience. A leader will face a long list of challenges, which, if not faced and disarmed, can turn the most competent person into a faltering coward. We have grouped these pitfalls to courage into two categories: doubt and avoidance.
Defeating Doubt
This foe of courageous leadership comes in a variety of flavors.
First, there are the personal doubts. We may doubt our abilities, our judgment, our talents, and even our faith. We look at a problem and cannot find a solution. We attempt to fix it but cannot. Doubt oozes into our minds, and we are frozen into inactivity.
Then there are the doubts about our teams or others we depend upon. Have you ever worked with people who are overwhelmed, stressed out, resistant to change, burned out, not working together, complainers, rumor spreaders, backstabbers, noncommunicators, whiners, stubborn hardheads, blamers, or unmotivated negative thinkers? When encountering such bad attitudes and behaviors that stall the progress of our teams, we are tempted to slide into despair, and our backbones turn to mush.
Next is doubt in the organization. We may see the company sliding down a hill to mediocre performance, abandoning the right values and a vibrant vision. It’s one thing to maintain your own personal courage in the place where you have influence. But it’s overwhelming to stand strong when the larger organization is waffling on its mission and embracing plans that seem doomed in the face of aggressive market competition. Your knees start to knock.
Also doubts may surface when organizational outsiders, like stockholders, start questioning our forecasts and plans.
To endure as a leader, you will have to disarm doubt with gritty courage.
Arresting Avoidance
Another courage-crippler is refusing to confront reality and act. If we employ avoidance tactics when we are tested and struggle, we will end up with even more frustration and trouble. We have seen organizations take giant steps to avoid any kind of pain and suffering. But the result is a dysfunctional organization, not a great company.
To quote Winston Churchill, “One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger.… If you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.” Avoidance confuses the entire organization. It causes “mental illness” in the company and on your team.
Avoidance-oriented people tend to move away from things that threaten them in order to protect themselves. Why? There are a number of reasons. Often it is due to excessive concern about embarrassment. We just don’t want to be embarrassed or, more often, to embarrass someone else. We hold back—we don’t tell the truth—and poor organizational or personal behaviors are perpetuated.
Fear is another culprit. Sometimes it just seems easier to run and hide. Maybe the issue will somehow just go away? That’s classic avoidance—a sign of cowardly leadership.
Another reason for avoiding problems can be oversensitivity to the feelings or opinions of others. We just don’t want to hurt anybody. The other person is so nice; why should she have her parade rained upon? Issues are circumvented, and facts are ignored. We avoid the short-term pain and inflict a longer-term problem within the team and the organization.
And then there is the old standby character quality that causes so many problems: unhealthy pride. Some of the people who are most adept at avoidance are very proud, especially if exploring the gory details of an organizational issue might make them look bad.
Leaders who develop a humble heart and a willingness to confront concerns do not allow pride to interfere. They are open to opportunities for self-growth because they are secure in who they are and are not preoccupied with themselves.
Avoidance holds back an organization whereas a commitment to improvement will positively influence your own development as well as the development of interpersonal relationships, teams, and overall company effectiveness.
It takes great courage to change a pattern of avoidance and seek instead to make improvements and overcome the pain or difficulty in making decisions, confronting people, or being overwhelmed by circumstances or self-doubt. It is not easy, but the benefits you will experience from making this change are far greater than the “benefits” of avoidance.
Freedom from avoidance enables leaders to focus attention on determining when a situation needs action and improvement.
