Excerpted from The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity by the Center for Courage & Renewal and Shelly L. Francis (Berrett-Koehler, 2018).

Fight. Flee. Freeze. Flock. But for each stress reaction, an option exists to get us out of our corners: fortify. As when we take vitamins and essential minerals, we can fortify ourselves for the hard times. When fortified, we can choose how to respond instead of simply reacting, and our choices come from a healthier, more self-aware stance.

Fortitude is another word for courage. When Thomas Aquinas wrote about bravery in the thirteenth century, he used the Latin word fortitudo, and held that courage was a disposition required for every other virtue. That was before the common usage of the French word coeur or the Latin cor, which translates as “heart.” Combine them both and think “strength of heart.”

What are ways you fortify yourself on all levels, especially your heart? Mindfulness meditation, listening to good music, eating great food, dancing or running, spending time in nature, time spent with friends? Anything you do to regain your strength and composure, your clarity about who you are deep down inside, is a form of fortification. Self-awareness fortifies you to stand firm in your values. Doing meaningful work that reflects who you are gives you energy to work through hard times. Community fortifies you with kind support and the compassionate challenge of others. Strengthened, you find courage to act on the insights you’ve gained.

What inspires you, infuses you, instills you with the spirit of courage? Where in your body do you feel the urge to do the right thing no matter how hard? When do you know you must try without knowing whether or not you’ll succeed? How do you tap into courage when you need it? Somehow you trust in your gut, you get up your nerve, you know in your heart, and your head clearly agrees.  

Cultivating Courage at Work

Monica Worline is an organizational psychologist who has studied courage and compassion in the workplace. She examined the ways in which people experience courage or failures of courage in terms of speaking up or staying silent. Her research wasn’t about the big courage of whistleblowing, but the daily courage that allows people to risk being the person who stands up to say, “I know this project plan won’t work” or “It feels like we’re agreeing to something we don’t all believe in.”

Worline asked her subjects to tell a story of courage in their workplace. Eighty percent of the people told stories of seeing someone else act in a way they viewed as courageous. So she asked those people about their courage. They could see how someone might call their actions courageous, but would also explain how they saw it instead: “Oh, that was easy for me because I have a good relationship with my boss.” Or they would refer to competence, saying, “I’ve done the same thing countless times in my previous job, so I knew it could be done.”

Not recognizing or acknowledging our own courage isn’t simply a matter of humility. When we examine our own behavior, we have access to our own interior landscape. We know that what looks risky from the outside isn’t necessarily that risky inside.

“Just because you don’t see this thing you did as extra courageous doesn’t mean courage doesn’t exist,” Worline told me. “Courage exists in the space where people see others as exemplars. That is a generative tension. It doesn’t erase the effect of that courage in the social space.”

Courage exists in the spaces between us. That’s worth repeating and imagining. Courage is not only in our hearts: when it happens and is witnessed, it becomes part of the space between us. Poet John O’Donohue speaks of blessing the space between us, of that moment when courage is kindled and we learn to find ease with risk. A leader’s job—and anyone who does this is leading—is to give encouragement to others, to help them recognize that they have more capacity than they realize.

If courage is not witnessed and interpreted as courage, does it count? The role of the witness does make a difference. Having your courage witnessed by others reinforces your resolve for the future, which is fortifying. Yet this thought from Mary Ann Radmacher is true, too: “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”   

Courage Comes from True Self  

If courage is needed for being a leader, how can you become more of a person who does lead the way? (It’s both can and do.) What is inside the person who leads, not just with physical bravery but with moral, social, and creative courage?

Courage is what happens when you bring inspiration and integrity to your decisions to take action. Courage is the life force that animates you in moments of decision and action. Courage is what happens when your soul shows up. Courage is not only in you—it is you. In your moments of courage, you meet your true self. 

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
 —Maya Angelou  

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For more inspiration join this Saturday's Awakin Call with Shelly Francis, more details and RSVP info here.