5 Marks of Courageous Leaders
Leading boldly in chaotic times.
Dr. Eugene B. Habecker
"Not another article on courageous leadership. Aren't there enough good books and articles on this topic already?" So went a recent conversation with a colleague. Indeed, there are multiple extant perspectives on this important subject, including those that focus on the personal and spiritual attributes of courageous leaders. Too often, courageous leadership is presented as efforts that depict the leader as the "tough boss" who takes actions that are often authoritarian or dictatorial (think "Chainsaw Al").
Additionally, Scripture is filled with exhortations for all of us, leaders or not, to live lives of courage. We see this in illustrative verses like Deuteronomy 31:6 and Joshua 1:6-9, Daniel 10:12, 1 Chronicles 22:13, Acts 23:11, and many others. Paul talked about his need for courage in Philippians 1:20. Certainly any Christ-follower who desires to walk in full obedience to what Christ calls us to be and do—to carry their cross—is called to live courageously.
Organizational leaders who are Christ-followers are nowhere exempt from any of these far-reaching biblical expectations. All of us are called to love courageously, to live courageously, to lead courageously, to follow courageously, and to serve courageously—as his followers. But what does that look like, especially the leading part, in an organizational context? Here are some of the qualities that I believe characterize courageous leaders.
(1) Courageous leaders understand the need to balance stewarding the mission with nurturing and caring for the people who help implement the mission. Courageous leaders keep both ends in mind. Sometimes leaders hurt the mission by over-committing on the people side; some unnecessarily hurt people in the name of the mission and agenda on the other.
In these days of economic distress and financial shortfalls, the mantra sometimes heard is, "Don't waste a good crisis," and many organizations have not. Indeed, some have used the camouflage of "economic tough times" to cover up preexisting mismanagement or poor policy implementation. That is not courageous leadership. Courageous leaders hire carefully, nurture intentionally, and, when there is a collision between mission and people, work hard to preserve mission integrity while minimizing injury to people as much as possible. Make no mistake, a lost job hurts. Every leader knows the difficulty of trying to get right that balance, as well as the reality of sometimes getting it wrong.
(2) Courageous leaders learn how to manage the gap between the strategic and the tactical, and pursue the mission with the past, the present, and the future in mind. A courageous leader is someone who understands that you just can't announce a vision and expect it to become reality. Rather, courageous leaders work hard to ensure that management disciplines are put in place to deliver and implement the vision. Without those disciplines, there will always be a gap between vision articulation and vision achievement. To achieve a great vision, outstanding implementation and execution disciplines must be embedded within the vision.
Alternatively, part of getting this right requires leaders to move from primarily tactical issues to strategic issues. Because tactical issues are often the most pressing, they often get the most attention. Yet the decisions that ultimately lead to transformational organizational change, rather than only to mere incremental improvement, are those that require the thought that leads to informed strategic choices and action.
In the same way, organizations have to simultaneously understand and pursue their mission with the past, the present, and the future in mind. Institutions do their work in the present, informed by their past, and knowing all along that the majority of their beneficiaries are future stakeholders. Understanding these competing tensions, while knowing the need to get it right now, requires courageous leaders who think strategically without getting sidetracked by the tactical.
(3) Courageous leaders embrace the complexity of risk and understand the reality of failure in decision-making. Few organizations are blessed with revenue streams that keep on providing for ongoing needs, no matter what. As a result, new initiatives need to be regularly considered, and older or unproductive ones need to be ended or abandoned. Yet when it comes to program review, the reality is that organizations tend to add more than they subtract. Courageous leaders champion outside-the-box thinking and regularly pursue "blue ocean" alternatives, seeking the often hard-to-find opportunity and counterintuitive solution.
The October 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review was devoted entirely to this matter of risk. The reality is that leaders want to play it safe because no one wants to lose. Not many leadership points are given to those who end up recommending closing programs or institutions. Yet risk is real, and the reality of failure is ever present in contemporary organizational life. Someone has noted that success has many parents, but failure is an orphan. Courageous leaders know and live those realities, yet lead through them, making the tough decision, albeit reluctantly, when necessary.
(4) Courageous leaders practice vulnerable trust. That is, they encourage those they lead to understand that silence on an emerging organizational problem is more harmful than is admitting failure, inadequacy, or incompetence. Patrick Lencioni has helped many of us understand this better in his Five Dysfunctions of a Team. In an organization where admission of a problem or inadequacy or incompetence on the part of senior staff is not welcome, systemically damaging problems are hidden, or, if known, often ignored. These issues cause organizations to erode over time or to suddenly implode. Meltdowns in various sectors of the nation's economy in the past 18 months illustrate this damage.
Courageous leaders establish cultures where those who have a depth of understanding about organizational issues, both good and bad, are encouraged to talk candidly about those issues, without fear of retribution. As someone has written, "Few are the organizational misadventures that are not foreseen by somebody in the organization." Courageous leaders trust people enough as to encourage them to share openly and upwardly about discouraging internal issues or failed systems. In organizations where this kind of vulnerability is not encouraged, and when the issues or problems finally emerge, the harm may have already occurred, resulting in irreparable organizational harm. By building trusting relationships, courageous leaders encourage staff to practice this kind of vulnerable trust.
(5) Courageous leaders, particularly in the difficult moments, work hard to "absorb the chaos, give back calm, and provide hope." By almost any standard, these are clearly chaotic times. In the midst of that chaos, people sometimes say the wrong things, sometimes pursue misguided agendas, and sometimes tend to be more brutal with people than with facts. These are times for courageous leaders to absorb that chaos, not by relying on their own strength, of course, but by relying on the strength and direction that comes from having learned the internal lesson, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Any Christ-follower who desires to walk in fullobedience to what Christ calls us to be and do—to carry their cross—is called to live courageously.
Courageous leaders give back calm. They don't retaliate or escalate difficulty by making things worse. A harsh criticism ought not to yield a harsher response. And authentic emotion that demonstrates clear identification with the difficulty and the people dealing with it can help. Perhaps one meaning of the word meek—power under control—is what I have in mind. This leads to the leader needing to provide hope. Courageous leaders, pastors, and coaches do.
Author Jim Collins reminds us of this leadership necessity when he talks about the Stockdale Paradox: "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."
Organizational leadership these days is not easy. Difficulty, no, extraordinary difficulty, is the name of the game. But now perhaps more than ever, we need courageous leaders who are able to help themselves and others through their leading and following, and especially through the guidance of God's Spirit, to recognize that (1) degree of difficulty is not the same as degree of impossibility, and (2) opportunity often resides where chaos and problems seek to be the sole tenants.
My prayer is that during these days of opportunity, yes opportunity, we will be empowered by the God "who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power …"—to be courageous followers and leaders in our walk with God, in our relationships with our families, and in the places of organizational leadership where he has called us to serve.
Dr. Eugene B. Habecker is president of Taylor University (taylor.edu). He served as president of the American Bible Society, as well as president and vice president of Huntington University. He serves on multiple nonprofit boards. Habecker holds degrees from Taylor University (B.A.), Ball State University (M.A.), and the University of Michigan (Ph.D.), as well as a law degree (J.D.) from Temple University.
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