Got courage to champion innovations and best practices that can make things better? Sababa. That’s a great first step.
And if you don’t have courage yet? With practice, you can own your power, poise, presence. So you come through volatility, uncertainty, complexity, adversity (VUCA) with triumph and joy, not despair. And with your ingenuity, initiative and brilliance shining. Even if you’re feeling afraid, daunted or stuck.
Your courage is great. But it’s not enough to get traction and accelerate adoption. So you’ve also got to Make Courage Contagious. Because no great leader can change the standard of care alone, even with the best innovation. When you Make Courage Contagious, you mobilize a diverse network of champions. So your success becomes a shared success.
Courage is the antidote to risk-averse compromises. That’s why we equip your leaders to Make Courage Contagious in the teams they mobilize. So they are trusted ennobling advisors when they step up, speak out, make their case, challenge old biases and assumptions and drive adoption, rather than wait for adoption. With 360° inside-out/outside-in perspectives, when they say, “Here’s a better alternative. Follow me and let’s make it happen together.”
With courage, antagonists say, “Bring it on!” and “Sharpen me up!” Diverse personalities, professions, lifestyles and neurodiverse talents step up, lean in and speak out, not shut down. And consider risk-assessments and contradictory evidence that can help with adoption, even when it’s hard to hear. When high-potential leaders Make Courage Contagious, teams benefit from diverse insights. And abrasion. They get past knowing/doing gaps – to take initiative, say “After me!” and mobilize support, when they see what more is possible.
The 5A Courage formula – East, North, South, West, Deep – equips leaders to encode courage into their reflexes and into the reflexes of the partners, teams, boards and investors they mobilize to get traction. The 5As equip leaders to step up and intervene as trusted advisors, challenge each other to do better, and lift partners out of risk-averse traps. With the 5As, teams create better alternatives – when what got you here (to your past success level) won’t be all you need to get there (to your next success level and the ones after that).
