21,99 €
The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 18 Minutes unlocks the secrets of highly successful leaders and pinpoints the missing ingredient that makes all the difference
You have the opportunity to lead: to show up with confidence, connected to others, and committed to a purpose in a way that inspires others to follow. Maybe it’s in your workplace, or in your relationships, or simply in your own life. But great leadership—leadership that aligns teams, inspires action, and achieves results—is hard. And what makes it hard isn’t theoretical, it’s practical. It’s not about knowing what to say or do. It’s about whether you’re willing to experience the discomfort, risk, and uncertainty of saying or doing it. In other words, the most critical challenge of leadership is emotional courage. If you are willing to feel everything, you can do anything.
Leading with Emotional Courage, based on the author’s popular blogs for Harvard Business Review, provides practical, real-world advice for building your emotional courage muscle. Each short, easy to read chapter details a distinct step in this emotional “workout,” giving you grounded advice for handling the difficult situations without sacrificing professional ground. By building the courage to say the necessary but difficult things, you become a stronger leader and leave the “should’ves” behind.
Theoretically, leadership is straightforward, but how many people actually lead? The gap between theory and practice is huge. Emotional courage is what bridges that gap. It’s what sets great leaders apart from the rest. It gets results. It cuts through the distractions, the noise, and the politics to solve problems and get things done. This book is packed with actionable steps you can take to start building these skills now.
Leading with Emotional Courage coaches you to build your emotional courage, exercise it effectively, and create an environment in which people around you take accountability to get hard things done.
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Seitenzahl: 298
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
COVER
WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK
HOW TO HAVE HARD CONVERSATIONS, CREATE ACCOUNTABILITY, AND INSPIRE ACTION ON YOUR MOST IMPORTANT WORK
NOTE
ELEMENT ONE: BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE
PART ONE: KNOW WHO YOU ARE
CHAPTER 1: BE YOURSELF
CHAPTER 2: FIND YOUR GROUND
CHAPTER 3: STAY CURIOUS ABOUT YOURSELF
CHAPTER 4: ACCESS SELF-COMPASSION
CHAPTER 5: EMBRACE YOUR SHADOW
CHAPTER 6: IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT ACHIEVEMENT
PART TWO: BECOME WHO YOU WANT TO BE
CHAPTER 7: FIND CLARITY
CHAPTER 8: BECOME MORE OF WHO YOU ARE
CHAPTER 9: STAY FOCUSED
CHAPTER 10: BE STRATEGIC AND INTENTIONAL
CHAPTER 11: DON'T LOSE YOURSELF IN PURSUIT OF BECOMING YOURSELF
CHAPTER 12: HOW WILL YOU MEASURE SUCCESS?
ELEMENT TWO: CONNECT WITH OTHERS
PART ONE: BE CURIOUS AND TRUSTING
CHAPTER 13: THE IMPACT OF TRUST
CHAPTER 14: STAY OPEN
CHAPTER 15: STAY CURIOUS ABOUT OTHERS
CHAPTER 16: STAY CREATIVE
CHAPTER 17: BE USEFUL
CHAPTER 18: MAKE PEOPLE FEEL GOOD
PART TWO: BE CLEAR AND TRUSTWORTHY
CHAPTER 19: EVERYONE IS CONTAGIOUS
CHAPTER 20: USE FEAR AS A GUIDE
CHAPTER 21: LEAD WITH THE PUNCHLINE
CHAPTER 22: SKILLFUL COMMUNICATION IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT
CHAPTER 23: OWN YOUR STUFF
CHAPTER 24: LET OTHERS KNOW YOU SEE THEM
ELEMENT THREE: COMMIT TO PURPOSE
PART ONE: ENERGIZE YOUR FOCUS
CHAPTER 25: PLAY HARD
CHAPTER 26: KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING
CHAPTER 27: FOCUS WHERE IT MATTERS
CHAPTER 28: USE YOUR FOCUS AS A FILTER
CHAPTER 29: YOU CAN'T SAY IT ENOUGH
CHAPTER 30: AND SOMETIMES IT'S BETTER TO SAY LESS
PART TWO: FOCUS THEIR ENERGY
CHAPTER 31: GIFTED, GAME, AND GENEROUS
CHAPTER 32: ENGAGE FROM THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER 33: HELPING OTHERS BE TRUSTWORTHY
CHAPTER 34: CREATING ACCOUNTABILITY
CHAPTER 35: BIGGER THAN YOU
CHAPTER 36: IMPROVING PERFORMANCE AFTER A CRITICAL ERROR (PACE)
ELEMENT FOUR: CULTIVATE EMOTIONAL COURAGE
PART ONE: FEEL COURAGEOUSLY
CHAPTER 37: KNOW WHAT YOU ARE FEELING
CHAPTER 38: FEELING IS PHYSICAL
CHAPTER 39: PRACTICE FEELING
CHAPTER 40: FEEL UNCERTAINTY
CHAPTER 41: BE WILLING TO FEEL THE HARD STUFF
CHAPTER 42: FEEL EVERYTHING
PART TWO: ACT BOLDLY
CHAPTER 43: RISK IS THE KEY TO LEADERSHIP
CHAPTER 44: BUILD YOUR RISK MUSCLE
CHAPTER 45: MAKE A DECISION
CHAPTER 46: RISK TRUTH
CHAPTER 47: TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT
CHAPTER 48: THE LIMITLESS POSSIBILITY OF NOW
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
Why You Should Read This Book
Figure I.1 Four essential elements that all great leaders demonstrate.
Figure I.2 Building confidence creates your foundation.
Figure I.3 Success depends on connecting with others.
Figure I.4 Achieving a common purpose requires focus.
Figure I.5 Emotional courage feeds – and draws on – confidence, connections, and commitment.
Figure I.6 Build your confidence.
Figure I.7 Connect with others.
Figure I.8 Commit to purpose.
Figure I.9 Cultivate emotional courage.
Chapter 26
Figure 26.1 Arrows of chaos.
Figure 26.2 The disarray of strategies against the larger purpose.
Figure 26.3 Aligning strategies to achieve the shared purpose.
Cover
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Leading with Emotional Courage is a trailblazing idea, inspirational manifesto and eminently achievable manual. Peter Bregman's central idea, “if you can feel everything, you can do anything,” instantly became my motto for forging more productive and rewarding relationships in every aspect of my life. It's ingenious, it's intuitive, and it works.
Jeffrey Seller, Four time Tony Award winning producer of Hamilton, Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights.
Leading with Emotional Courage is a terrific guide that explains why and how we need to look inward before we can drive leadership forward. It will also help you connect on a deeper level with those around you—an absolute necessity if you want to get your most important work done.
James A. Forese, President, Citigroup
Peter is a master storyteller who offers compelling and important takeaways that really do make a difference. The principles in this book are the ones I believe in, and they are aligned with those that helped me and my tribe build a culture that resulted in a 93% employee engagement level at WD-40 Company.
Garry Ridge – CEO WD-40 Company & coauthor with Ken Blanchard – Helping People Win at Work
We must see ourselves ‘life size,’ as Peter Drucker instructed. Leading with Emotional Courage is a leader's blueprint to do so.
Frances Hesselbein, Chairman, The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum, Former CEO of the Girl Scouts, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
Becoming a Values-based leader requires you to first be capable of leading yourself. Peter does a fantastic job of demonstrating why emotional courage is absolutely key to your personal leadership journey. I learned a lot by reading Peter's book.
Harry Kraemer, Jr, Professor, Northwestern Kellogg School of Mgmt; Former Chairman and CEO, BAXTER International
After reading this book, you will want to share it with your colleagues, your kids, and others in your life. Peter is a master at drawing readers in with self-evaluation, compelling stories, and concrete take-aways. This book will stay on my bookshelf as a reference.
Asheesh Advani, CEO, JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide
Leading with Emotional Courage is good for business, good for people, and good for the planet. Bregman's book offers the communications tools environmentalists and other nonprofit leaders need to transform tough conversations into progress and action.
Mark R. Tercek, President and CEO of The Nature Conservancy
Leading with Emotional Courage brilliantly identifies the often unnoticed emotional undercurrents of high-stakes business situations and the dynamics of everyday interactions. By making conscious the unconscious, this book offers us control over our own decisions and actions, asking us to open our minds and be curious when emotions are provoked. It has helped me personally to turn some of my most counter-productive reactions into questions. With practical, real-life examples and bite-sized nuggets of information, this book is relevant to everyone, not just ultra-senior leadership.
Michael Thatcher, CEO, Charity Navigator
At the end of the day, Peter gives useful tools for people to own their unique strength and power to be bold leaders in the board room and at the kitchen table
Randall Tucker, Mastercard Chief Inclusion Officer.
Emotional Courage is the foundation for inspirational and effective leadership. Peter Bregman's groundbreaking and timely book, Leading with Emotional Courage, does not merely inspire action, it cultivates it. Through concrete and actionable how-to's and compelling stories, this book will change the way you make decisions, how you speak in a boardroom, and actually how you feel at the end of each day. Leading with Emotional Courage is right on target and surprisingly different than anything out there. I feel like I've been waiting for this book for a long time!
James M. Citrin, Leader, Spencer Stuart CEO Practice, Author, You're in Charge, Now What?
This is a brave and generous book about being brave and generous. Emotional courage isn't about getting what we want, it's about serving others. Peter Bregman is sharing useful magic here.
Seth Godin, author of Linchpin
Emotional courage is the courage to feel. It's what stands between us and the difficult things we must do as leaders. Emotional courage grows stronger when you practice it—by taking a risk, making a decision, or otherwise following through when you may not be comfortable doing so. It's about getting out of your own way and having the emotional freedom to act. Want to know more? Then follow through and read this book!
Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager® and Servant Leadership in Action
Peter's concept of Emotional Courage is a game-changer. It isn't just another theory about productivity or leadership—it's a truth you can feel. It affects every aspect of your leadership and every relationship in your life. The beauty of this book is that it helps you actually strengthen those critical mental-emotional muscles and will make even the most successful leaders better.
Marshall Goldsmith – The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Triggers
Leading with Emotional Courage tackles a tough subject that isn't much talked about in the business world: the hard emotions that we all experience. If you courageously adopt the advice in this breakthrough book, you can begin the tough conversations that lead to real change, build more trusting relationships, and perhaps even become an inspiration to others.
Daniel H. Pink, author of WHEN and DRIVE
Want to learn how to brave the fears associated with difficult interpersonal exchanges on the job and elsewhere? Leading with Emotional Courage, brimming with applicable insights and lessons, is definitely the book for you.
Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion
Change begins from within; so does leadership. Bregman's insights help leaders gain personal confidence so that they can approach others with a clear purpose and bold, courageous actions. This marvelous book lets me feel like Peter is sitting next to me, coaching me how to be more effective. The insights resonate, the assessments inform, and the stories inspire.
Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Partner, The RBL Group
It's incredibly refreshing to get this sort of wise and kind advice from someone who specializes in helping leaders get “massive traction”. Most voices you'd hear today urging “massive traction” would speak fast, hard, unrelenting exhortations couched in inspirational illustrations of super-human performance. As human-centered-designers, we at the Life Design Lab at Stanford aren't too keen on those driven voices. We're looking to help people be more human – not super-human, which is a very different, and frankly in-human, thing. Peter Bregman has a different voice. What other “massive traction-getting” coaches will suggest that compassion is a critical foundation of self-confidence or that you need to master irrelevancy if you're going to succeed (and better do so well before retirement)? I've been assigning students to read Peter's contrary ideas for years and I recommend this book to you. I finally got to share coffee with him face-to-face and had one of the best first dates of all time. Pull up a chair with this book and share a coffee with Peter. You'll have a lovely time and be better for it.
Dave Evans, Co-Founder, Stanford Life Design Lab, Co-author, NYT #1 Bestseller, Designing Your Life, early Apple, co-founder Electronic Arts
Emotional courage is the superpower of the 21st Century! We live in a world where it is far easier to avoid our feelings than it is to feel them. As such, emotional courage is becoming rare at the same time that it is increasingly valuable. The people who cultivate emotional courage—who are confident, connected, and committed to their purpose—will thrive. Leading with Emotional Courage is an accessible action plan for breaking through the emotional barriers that prevent people from doing what they want to do.
Christine Carter, PhD, Author of The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less and Raising Happiness
Engaging and relevant, Peter Bregman's Leading with Emotional Courage provides a clear and practical framework to follow when facing emotionally-charged situations. He challenges us to face our fears and stand strong by offering both principles and skills that teach us how to confidently act before being acted upon. A superb read!
Stephen M. R. Covey, The New York Times and # 1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Speed of Trust and coauthor of Smart Trust
Leading without courage is not really leading at all. Bregman presents a compelling argument for the power of embracing difficult emotions.
Cal Newport, author of Deep Work
Leading with Emotional Courage is about putting your whole self into something. About embracing your fears, expressing your passions, showing your vulnerabilities, and engaging fully with others. It's a book that you do not simply read. Instead, you experience it. It's full of pathos and compassion, enlightenment and practicality. It's like conversing with your best friend. You come away feeling refreshed, entertained, and wiser. Peter Bregman is a master storyteller, and he enlivens his sage counsel with scores of personal tales, joyfully told, each containing simple wisdom and hard truths. There are lots of how-to-do books on the market. Leading with Emotional Courage isn't one of them. It's a how-to-be book, and I guarantee you that you'll want to be more like the person Peter describes once you've experienced this book. I highly recommend it.
Jim Kouzes, coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge and the Dean's Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University
There's a line between the domineering, overbearing management style of decades past—less effective because it's tone deaf to people—and an increasingly self-aware and people-oriented leadership style that can be less effective if it's too wimpy to get the job done. Bregman offers a thoughtful guide to finding and walking that sometimes elusive line. Leading with Emotional Courage offers manageable, bite-sized insights into thought and behavior changes that can help any leader be empathetic enough to honor our shared humanity but still courageous enough to make the tough decisions and initiate the hard conversations essential to a thriving workplace.
Whitney Johnson, Thinkers50 Leading Management Thinker, Critically-acclaimed author of Disrupt Yourself
Peter Bregman gives nuanced advice on how we can navigate the complex landscape of our emotional life—to become better leaders, (and better human beings), by being more connected to ourselves and others.
Tal Ben-Shahar, author of The Joy of Leadership
To be effective, leaders must move the heart, starting with their own. Bregman brilliantly highlights the often overlooked, but critical aspect of leadership – the courage to feel. Read this book to tap into the power of emotion and unleash your and your team's true potential.
Sanyin Siang, author of The Launch Book; Executive Director, Duke University Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership & Ethics
Emotional Courage is a wonderful reminder that if you are willing to feel everything you can do anything. The book, laced with Bregman's own courageous honesty and openness, will help you build your confidence, bring out the best in others, and summon the emotional courage you need to succeed as a leader.
Liz Wiseman, New York Times bestselling author of Multipliers and Rookie Smarts
In Leading with Emotional Courage, Peter Bregman provides us with a novel roadmap for how to embrace, rather than avoid, difficult emotions and, in so doing, live more fulfilling lives. The book is deeply insightful, a pleasure to read, and an indispensable guide for making discomfort and conflict a trusted ally and friend.
Andy Molinsky, Ph.D., author of Reach and Global Dexterity
Cowardice, as characterized by excessive self-interest, has become pervasive across our society. Peter Bregman has given us the tools to be emotionally courageous. As leaders we want to have tough conversations that benefit our organizations, and Leading with Emotional Courage shows us the way. Readers will emerge from Leading with Emotional Courage with renewed enthusiasm for the day to day challenges of leading. Peter Bregman's book promises to free a huge cohort of leaders from the anxieties that get in the way of doing what's right, instead of what's easy. Choosing the harder right over the easy wrong is one of the “Holy Grails” of leader development—and in Leading with Emotional Courage, Peter Bregman has captured that prize. Finally, a book to inspire those of us who lead through the conflict inherent to organizations.
Thomas A. Kolditz, PhD, Brigadier General, US Army (ret), Professor Emeritus, US Military Academy, West Point, Director, Ann & John Doerr Institute for New Leaders, Rice University
Leading with Emotional Courage is a great guide for practitioners who want to heighten their ability to influence others effectively. The book clearly identifies four elements associated with exhibiting emotional courage and provides tangible exercises in service of strengthening one's competence in a given area. I recommend this book to anyone who is committed to becoming a better leader!
Bernie Banks, Brigadier General, US Army (ret), Associate Dean of Leadership Development, Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management
Peter has spoken with such candor of the interior conversations we use to magnify or sabotage our leadership moments. It's like having a workable path, where you are taught to watch yourself and learn to lead. Take this path; you'll be larger for it.
Charlotte Beers, Former CEO Ogilvy, Former Undersecretary of State
What a lovely mix of personal and professional anecdotes and straight talk about the importance of taking emotions – yours and your colleagues – into account in the task of leading an organization. As Bregman's book so eloquently explains, as long as organizations are composed of humans and not robots, the fundamental challenge of corporate leadership is to get a diverse group of highly emotional creatures to work together effectively – which requires that leaders confront, head on, the need of everyone in the organization to have a sense of common purpose and connectedness. As leaders, we need the emotional courage to engage with our colleagues where they live, where the desire for affirmation and the fear of failure are constantly in play. I am grateful to Peter for writing this book.
Jim Millstein, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Millstein & Co., Former Chief Restructuring Officer at the U.S. Department of the Treasury
Emotional courage is critical to getting anything important done. And Bregman's book is the essential primer to developing it. If you lead – or aspire to lead – read this book. The world needs more people with emotional courage.
Mark Sanford, Unites States Congressman
PETER BREGMAN
Copyright © 2018 by Peter Bregman. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750–8400, fax (978) 646–8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748–6011, fax (201) 748–6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Names: Bregman, Peter, author.
Title: Leading with emotional courage : how to have hard conversations, create accountability, and inspire action on your most important work / Peter Bregman.
Description: Hoboken : Wiley, 2018. | Includes index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018008605 (print) | LCCN 2018012980 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119505679 (epub) | ISBN 9781119505686 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119505693 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Personnel management. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Management. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Leadership. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Human Resources & Personnel Management.
Classification: LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | LCC HD57.7 .B734 2018 (print) | DDC 658.4/092—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018008605
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Illustration: © RedKoalaDesign/iStockphoto
To Ann Bradney and Jessica GelsonYou are remarkable women, leaders, teachersYou inspire me to feel everythingThe world is a better place because of youThank you
Think of a hard conversation you know you should have with someone that you haven't initiated. Do you have one in mind?
Now, consider why you haven't had the conversation.
Is it because you don't know what you want to say? I'm betting you know exactly what you want to say. Is it because you haven't had the opportunity to say it? I'm guessing you've already missed a few ripe opportunities to raise this uncomfortable issue. Is it because you don't know how to say it? I'm sure you're struggling with finding the perfect words. But why do you need perfect words? Adequate words should be enough.
So, why haven't you had the conversation?
Because it's scary.
As you think about it, your heart rate quickens, your adrenaline flows, your sweat rises to the surface. What if they lash back or get defensive or blame you? What if they simply stare at you and go all passive-aggressive? What if they get meaner afterwards? What if they gossip about you to others? Or maybe you're afraid of your own response. What if you lose control and fly into a rage and do things you will regret later?
That would be uncomfortable (to say the least). You would have to feel things that you don't want to feel.
And that, it turns out, is what holds you back.
What's hard – what actually derails us from acting powerfully in our lives, in our relationships, at work, in the world – is discomfort. The discomfort of follow-through.
On the surface, it seems like the key to follow-through is the courage to act. And it is. But what underlies the courage to act?
The courage to feel. Emotional courage. And that is what this book will help you develop.
If You Are Willing to Feel Everything, You Can Do Anything.
Any gap you have in emotional courage limits your freedom to act. When you avoid feeling, it's a huge drain on your productivity and your organizational outcomes.
I know this because my company, Bregman Partners, helps leaders and teams work more effectively together to get massive traction on their most important work. Our focus is on strategy execution – getting difficult things done – and our coaches help people move through the blocks and obstacles that prevent them from contributing their maximum potential.
Over time, we have seen just about every obstacle imaginable – people coming up against silos, politics, culture, clients, the marketplace, and more.
But, far and away the biggest block to contributing their maximum potential is invariably self-imposed – underdeveloped emotional courage – their resistance to following through on uncomfortable actions. If they don't follow through – if they don't have that hard conversation – then they won't have to feel the hard feelings. So they don't follow through.
Take Brad,1 for example, CEO of a financial services firm. He was managing a difficult turnaround of his sales organization and had decided that he needed to fire his head of sales, who was a nice guy but who wasn't performing. Three months later, he still hadn't fired him. I asked him why. His answer? “I'm a wimp!”
No, he's not a wimp. He's a normal human being. Like you, like me. And he is stuck. Just as, at times, you and I are.
More than anything, our collective lack of emotional courage – our unwillingness to feel the hard feelings that arise when we follow through on difficult tasks – is what prevents us and our teams from moving forward.
The opposite is also true (and very exciting). If you are willing to feel everything, you can get massive traction on your most important work, and your organization can achieve great things in the world. You can close the gap between strategy and execution.
That is why I wrote this book. And it's why you should read it.
This book will help you grow your emotional courage. And growing your emotional courage is at the root of all your success. It will enable you to have hard conversations, create accountability, and inspire action on your most important work.
That's a bold statement. What makes me think I can make it?
I designed a leadership training to improve people's ability to act – individually and together – by increasing their willingness to feel. Although participants' hopes and goals varied, I'm sure they will feel familiar to you:
“I want to inspire others to follow me.”
“I want to communicate with more impact.”
“I don't want to shrink from or avoid conflict.”
“I want to take more risks.”
“I want to follow through on my ideas.”
“I don't want to get so defensive when I, or my ideas, are criticized.”
“I want more confidence.”
“I want to continue to be successful but without all the anxiety.”
“I want people to respect me, trust me, follow my lead, and follow through.”
“I want our team to work more effectively together.”
No matter your age, your role, your position, your title, your profession, your status, your team, don't you want these things too?
Here's how I know that growing your emotional courage is the path:
Eight months after they attended our program, we surveyed participants about the lasting impact. With no interim intervention from us, they experienced increased effectiveness in all categories we measured, including:
Raising hard-to-talk-about issues in a way that initiates important conversations.
Taking risks that could lead to new possibilities.
Connecting with people in a way that inspires their commitment.
Staying grounded in the face of success, failure, or uncertainty.
Communicating skillfully in the presence of strong emotions.
Driving the most critical business results.
Overall leadership effectiveness.
Then they told us that developing their emotional courage had other positive effects on their leadership and their lives:
Created lasting relationships they could count on.
Increased their ability to act when they were at their edge.
Increased their confidence in critical leadership moments.
Uncovered their unique blind spots and helped them remove those blind spots as obstacles to their success.
Increased their effectiveness in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity.
Increased their courage to act.
Increased their ability to have difficult conversations with productive outcomes.
Stimulated them to stop procrastinating on important leadership actions.
Had a positive impact on their career.
Had a positive impact on their business results.
Increased their ability to change their behavior.
Had a lasting impact on their leadership.
You can have these things too. Emotional courage is not a talent that some people are born with and others aren't. It is entirely developable. We all feel things deeply. In fact, that's why we let feelings stop us – we have learned, through experience, that some feelings – shame, embarrassment, rejection, to name a few – are painful. And so we do our best to shut those feelings down, mostly by restricting our behavior so that we don't do things that might invite those feelings. But that strategy is flawed: It makes us much less powerful in the world.
Here's the good news: You had emotional courage when you were younger and you can have it again. It's a coming home, really. And what I have learned from our leadership work is that emotional courage is not just an idea, it's a muscle. And, like all muscles, it grows with exercise. Each time you follow through on a task you might be avoiding, you are working your emotional courage muscle, building it, helping it grow stronger.
Every time you choose to initiate a difficult conversation, you are developing your emotional courage. Every time you take a risk, make a decision, or influence others, you are growing your emotional courage. Even something as seemingly simple as hearing someone's opposing viewpoint or criticism of you without getting defensive – in other words, even listening – that's increasing your emotional courage.
With enough practice, emotional courage will be second nature and, though some things will still feel daunting, many will be less so, and you will have the courage to feel whatever it is you need to feel in order to move ahead.
To get your most important work done you have to have hard conversations, create accountability, and inspire action. In order to do that, you need to show up powerfully and magnetically in a way that attracts people to trust you and follow you and commit to putting 100% of their effort into a larger purpose, something bigger than all of you. You need to care about others, and connect with them in a way that they feel your care. You need to speak persuasively – in a way that's clear, direct, honest, and reflects your care – while listening with openness, compassion, and love. Even when being challenged. And, of course, you need to follow through – taking brave action to make what's in your head a reality in the world.
In 25 years of working with leaders to do all the above, I have found a pattern, illustrated in Figure I.1. Four essential elements that all great leaders demonstrate. Four ways of showing up that predictably rally people to accomplish what's important to them:
Figure I.1 Four essential elements that all great leaders demonstrate.
You need to be confident in yourself.
You need to be connected with others.
You need to be committed to a purpose.
You need to act with emotional courage.
Most of us are great at only one of the four. Maybe two. But to be a powerful presence – to inspire action – you need to excel at all four simultaneously.
If you're confident in yourself, but disconnected from others, everything will be about you and you'll alienate the people around you. If you're connected to others, but lack confidence in yourself, you will betray your own needs and perspectives in order to please everyone else. If you're not committed to a purpose, something bigger than yourself and others, you'll lose the respect of those around you as you act aimlessly, failing to make an impact on what matters most. And if you fail to act, powerfully, decisively, and boldly – with emotional courage – your ideas will remain in your head and your goals will remain unfulfilled fantasies.
Consider the following three people who attended our leadership training:
Frank, the president of a financial services firm, was thoughtful, aware, and intentional about what he did, why he did it, and how he wanted to impact those around him. He set good boundaries, knew what he needed, and didn't hesitate to speak up for himself. But he wasn't getting the traction he hoped for. The problem was that he often alienated the people around him who, in his view, didn't understand him. When he felt misunderstood, he tried to explain himself, which, to his confusion, annoyed people even more. He knew he wasn't getting the best out of the people around him – they were underperforming – but he wasn't sure what would motivate them or how to do it.
Shelly was a well-loved entrepreneur who always took great care of her clients, her employees, and her family. She felt good about her success with other people – she knew how to keep people happy – and they certainly felt great about her. But her company was stalled and she felt exhausted and anxious. Shelly had a sense that something was missing in her life, but wasn't even sure what that meant or what she needed. And she was afraid to make too many changes lest they disrupt the people around her whose needs she prioritized. Shelly was connected to everyone else, and she was willing to give up on herself and even her company – in order to meet their needs.
Sanjay was a powerhouse. A turnaround leader. He was the person a company called in when they needed change. He set high