Choose courage over confidence
Courage isn’t my strongest virtue.
I’m not writing this piece because I have mastered the art of courage but rather, the contrary. I fear criticism, embarrassment and looking stupid. I'm writing this to remind myself to be bold with my actions everyday.
Confidence is often confused with courage. These words tend to be used interchangeably, when they really mean two very different things.
Courage is not the absence of fear; rather courage allows us to attempt things that we haven’t tried before, despite the fear of possibly looking like a fool.
On the other hand, confidence is an outcome. It is the result of hours, days, weeks and years of constant practice and dedication to certain processes.
Courage is the key to great leadership. According to Aristotle, courage is the first virtue as it makes all the other virtues possible. It’s the starting point that will inform and strengthen all other leadership virtues. We can’t take risks that might go against the grain of our organisation, or be vulnerable to our team members, if we’re not courageous.
Courageous leaders are aware that uncertainty is always going to be present in the decisions they are going to make - uncertain if they will be able to garner support, uncertain if the strategy falls flat, and so on. But they push ahead anyway, despite their fears.
When we embark on something unknown, we can only draw from courage - it’s all we have.
Just the other day, I was scheduled for a late interstate evening flight but was at the airport 6 hours early and wanted to switch to an earlier flight. I’d never done anything like that before, and the airport was ridiculously crowded and chaotic that day. There was a long queue at the check-in counter and my mind went, “Surely I won’t be able to get an earlier flight, look at the queue!”
But I told myself to be brave, and squeezed myself to the counter to enquire, already dreading the dirty looks from the queue. But in the end I’m glad I did it as I found out I was at the wrong counter and, long story short, managed to change my flight with no extra charges. What a triumph!
You can be forgiven for thinking that this example hardly qualifies as an act of courage. But for someone like me, who can’t even give feedback to a waiter for bad tasting food, that act was another step to me becoming a more courageous person.
It takes bold decisions to build a world-class company. Without courageous leaders, the company’s mission will wither. A leader’s boldness will inspire their employees, attract strategic partnerships and invigorate customer demand.
Indeed, nothing great comes without risk. ●