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LEADERSHIP ESSENTIALS: TIP 18

Writer's picture: James RuleJames Rule


Courage is a true leadership essential. The need for it manifests itself in so many key aspects of leadership.


Courage to make a decision - Leaders are required to make a continuous stream of decisions. Rarely are they afforded the luxury of time or sufficient information on which to base them.


Colin Powell referred to his “40 - 70” rule and the sweet spot of making a decision when you have between 40% and 70% of the information.


Act too early and you are under-prepared, too late and you run the risk of missing the opportunity altogether. It takes courage to make decisions in that 40 - 70 window.


Courage to give inexperienced talent a chance - Sport and business are results-driven. It is easy for a coach or manager to play safe and appoint experienced, tried, and tested talent into key roles.


However, the only way young and/or inexperienced individuals can grow and gain experience is


by being given a chance. That chance is at the behest of their leader. Granted, mistakes will be made in the short term but by showing courage in the first instance the leader can be rewarded by uncovering a top quality team member for the medium to long term.


Courage to delegate - This ties in with the previous point. Many leaders struggle to delegate. It takes courage to hand over autonomy on key aspects of a strategy. Mistakes may be made but by having the courage to step back, a leader’s team will feel trusted and valued and the leader will benefit from an associated spike in their team’s performance.


Courage to admit a skills gap - In the early stages of my tenure as a chief executive I laboured under the misguided notion that a leader has to be highly competent in all aspects of business.


Eventually I learned that there is nothing wrong with accepting you have strengths and weaknesses, and acknowledging that personally and to colleagues. The key is to then focus on ensuring you recruit the best quality talent in the areas you feel you have a skills gap.


Courage to be disliked - Leadership requires you to make tough calls and ultimately to do what is right for the business or team. These may be unpopular within the wider stakeholder group. You will be disliked as a consequence. Leadership cannot be about seeking popularity and pandering to a prevailing mood. Rather it is about making the right call based on the data and insights you have available.


With the benefit of hindsight and when more data is available it is easy for people to critique decisions.


It is imperative for every leader to always be able to look themselves in the eye and know they did the best that they could, with the resources they had available, in the moment they were in.


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