Quality Leadership Demands Courage and Action
Writing a blog is a new adventure for me. I am excited, apprehensive, wondering who will be reading what I write, and looking forward to feedback, dialogue, and new ideas. I am looking forward to sharing my thoughts about leadership and other current agendas through this medium. This first thought piece will be my introduction to you and your introduction to me. The essential nature of courage and action in leadership on every level, whether it be in schools, communities, corporations, or government has become an issue of great importance to me. Every day I look for examples of courageous leadership and find that they are very scarce!
The crucial factors promoting successful leadership are commitment, passion to make a difference, a vision or foresight for achieving positive change, developing a trusting environment and the courage to take action.
Ghandi has been quoted as saying that the moral courage to act comes from identification with the intrinsic good in oneself and in others. It is moral courage that determines the standard and quality of leadership found in the various sectors of our society. When moral courage is exercised, individuals take action, and they display the courage to do what they know is right! They are willing to face the consequences that in some cases can result in loss of friends, position, money, and even what society might label as success. Most of us have had to make some very difficult decisions in our lives. We recognize that to do what we know is right, and to treat all members of society as equals who are deserving of our attention and love requires an extraordinary amount of courage. Have we always had the courage to act? To do what is right?
We all dream of being successful and of making a difference, but more frequently than not, we allow ourselves to succumb to the gnawing fear of failure or ridicule that paralyzes us, and keeps us from taking action. Preconceived notions about what others may judge to be our ability to succeed or fail are deeply ingrained in our minds from early childhood. One of the most difficult things for human being to do is to release these engrained patterns of thinking, to move beyond deeply embedded mental barriers. Thoughts such as, I’m not a leader, I’m not smart enough, I was born on the wrong side of the tracks, I went to a second rate school …or even worse, if I do act, what if I make a mistake! This negative thinking deters us from taking action that might make a great difference in achieving the common good.
We are so fearful that we lose sight of the real factors most crucial to promoting successful leadership. What are these factors? Well, not money, not social class not the judgment of our friends and colleagues, and please forgive me, but its not even academic degrees! The crucial factors promoting successful leadership are COMMITMENT, PASSION TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE, A VISION OR FORESIGHT FOR ACHIEVING POSITIVE CHANGE, DEVELOPING A TRUSTING ENVIRONMENT AND THE COURAGE TO TAKE ACTION.
Perhaps this last element, the courage to take action, is the source of our greatest struggle. We have the intelligence or the intuition about how to makes things better, we have the vision and the passion, but we fail to act!
Right now I feel there is a change in the air. Our new leaders in Washington are taking courageous leadership actions. Whether they are right or wrong actions remains to be seen, but, they are courageously acting and not standing still! We live in a democratic society so it is within our power to either join the movement or bravely suggest alternative avenues to create a new future for ourselves and for our communities. If you don’t like the path that is being created for a new and better environment then give us another plan or idea, but don’t waste time by fearfully doing nothing or by throwing rocks at someone else’s ideas! Criticizing others without offering alternative suggestions is cowardice not courage!