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Leading in organizations, at any level, requires courage. Uncertainty and risk are ever-present – probably more so in today’s tumultuous times – and when you work with other people, ego and differing visions can collide.
From childhood, Ranjay Gulati, was awed by boldness he saw in others and concerned by his own relative fearfulness. In his 20s and 30s, he forced himself to take risks in the hope of proving to himself he was more courageous than he inwardly felt. As a professor at the Harvard Business School, he has been studying courage in individuals and daring organizations.
He concluded that what ultimately allows courageous people to take action isn’t their lack of fear but their ability to make sense of situations in helpful ways, and also to see themselves as strong, capable people who can control their destinies. “Most courageous people experience fear just like any of us do. But they come to understand the world and themselves in ways that incline them to take bold, forceful action when it really counts,” he writes in How to be Bold.
Courage is a learned behaviour, he argues, not an innate one. It depends not just on your emotional state but on your reasoning and interpretation of reality. “Much of the time, courageous people are afraid, yet they are undaunted, managing to find the strength to take action anyway, becoming everyday heroes,” he notes.
He sets out a fear equation we confront: Uncertainty + loss of control = fear. To bolster our courage muscles, we must take steps to mitigate risk and also to cope better with uncertainty and the loss of control that accompanies it.
He says the courageous individuals he has studied tend to follow one of two strategies to compensate for the uncertainty and their lack of control:
- Some put their faith in external, nonrational forces they hope will intervene and protect them from unforeseen threats. These folks believe in the divine, new-age spirituality or superstitions – think of the many odd ways athletes act to help ensure victory, wearing certain clothing or not stepping on a chalked sideline while taking the field, or people who cross their fingers or say a prayer before leaving on a long trip. “Performing such actions frames reality for us in a way that reduces our perceptions of uncertainty while also enhancing our sense of control,” he explains. By believing in such forces, they can tell themselves stories that take the form of logical arguments about the future that can offer comfort and allow them to exercise more personal agency when the threats arise.
- Others take a more rational tack, mobilizing traditional risk mitigation strategies. But they do so in extreme ways that as a side effect allows them to address uncertainty, not merely known risks. “By obsessing over risk, they too told themselves comforting stories about the future, convincing themselves that they had accounted for the potential dangers so thoroughly that they had essentially reduced uncertainty to near zero. Risk mitigation, in other words, came to serve a psychological function for them, not simply the practical one of optimizing their decision making,” he says.
That can help you exercise personal courage. But to take risks on behalf of a group requires connections to others and to a collective identity that reinforces personal identity. “Belonging to a group and subscribing to their beliefs and values deeply influences our own sense of who we are, contributing in turn to our willingness to behave boldly,” he says.
That means if you want people in your organization to be courageous on behalf of the group, you must cultivate identity fusion, an intense connection in which individuals have a strong, visceral sense of belonging to the group and at the same time a feeling they are a unique and valued member of the group. When threats arise both their personal and collective identities seem at stake.
He shares three identity fusion enhancers:
- Mobilize the power of shared adversity: As we know from soldiers or the original team at a start-up, overcoming a shared adversity is much more powerful than traditional team-building for building relationships. “Team members become more deeply attached, seeing one another not merely as trusted colleagues and friends, but as brothers and sisters in arms,” he writes.
- Make collective identity more spacious: The team must be seen as an intimate place where individuals are also understood and valued for their uniqueness. Each must feel the group is a “crucial part of who I am” and “I am an important part of the group.”
- Keep the group fused over time: Ruptures can occur as reorganizations take place or decisions are made that leave individuals feeling the organization no longer upholds what they consider its core values and beliefs. “To sustain fusion, we must take steps to renew the collective identity before a perceptible erosion can take hold,” he advises, keeping the collective identity vibrant by ensuring that people continue to understand the team’s core reason for being as well as the values associated with it.
In the end, it comes back to the fear equation. Courage requires you, individually and collectively, to reduce risk and work to cope better with uncertainty and the loss of control that can come with it.
Cannonballs
- When you don’t feel empowered to decide, you call meetings, says executive coach Yue Zhao. When there isn’t a clear delineation of who, what and where decisions are made, everyone spends more time in meetings – discussing and aligning, rather than doing the work.
- At the end of a meeting, leadership consultant Alain Hunkins advises asking for “a receipt.” Confirm what was discussed and who will take action. “It’s not that we’re not smart professionals. It’s that we know misunderstanding happens. So we want to make sure we put guardrails in place so it doesn’t happen too much,” he says.
- Former GE executive Ian Wilson warns “no amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future.”
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.