Leading with Courage

Friday, 14 July 2017 00:00
Published in Blog

If you’ve been following my updates lately, you will notice I’ve been focused on courage. The courage to lead.

The courage to be authentic. And the courage to succeed. Well, I’m taking my own advice. I’m being courageous and using the wonderful opportunity provided by the 5th World Congress of Positive Psychology in Montreal to launch my new program, Leading with Courage.

Why leading with courage?

In these times of disruption and tension, positive forms of leadership – namely, authentic leadership – are needed to restore confidence, hope and optimism in leaders and associates. However, with a competitive marketplace, competing stakeholder expectations and destructive organisational politics in which authentic leadership may not be supported, clients and my own observations have led me to realise that courage is fundamental to leading authentically.

There are also demonstrated benefits of increased courage and authentic leadership. With courage; leaders perform better, business results are improved and organisational integrity is ensured. Authentic leadership has also resulted in elevated, sustained performance of the leader and associates. And with evidence linking courage to wellbeing, it is expected that a focus on courage will provide additional positive impact on the workplace wellbeing of our leaders with further impact on organisational success.

A measurable, outcomes-based program

Leading with Courage is a measurable, outcomes-based program that has been designed to build courage in senior and executive leaders. The program comprises three key steps:

1. Preparing to be Courageous – participants will begin to reflect on past acts of courage and also, identify a current workplace situation requiring courage

2. Exploring Courage – using narrative as the predominant learning methodology, participants will further explore their own courageous acts and have the opportunity to experience the courageous acts of others

3. Being Courageous – this is the opportunity for participants to lead with courage in the workplace with support from others

To assess the impact of this program, participants will complete pre- and post- program measures of workplace courage, authentic leadership and workplace wellbeing. It is anticipated that each measure will show positive shifts in behaviour.

This program, designed to build courage, provides an opportunity to enable and embed authentic leadership behaviour.

While courage is not the only behaviour required of leaders, it is an essential leadership behaviour for success and may be the one which provides most support in these challenging times.

I welcome the opportunity to speak with you about Leading with Courage too.

 

Dina

 

 

insium's newsletter on leadership: June, 2017

Written by Wednesday, 28 June 2017 00:00
Published in Newsletter

 

In preparing for my presentation, "Leading with Courage," for the 5th World Congress of Positive Psychology in Montreal next month, I am reminded of quotes, videos, images, memories and more that have piqued my curiosity in courage.

Firstly, it was the study and subsequent design of the Authentic Leadership Program with colleagues that ignited my curiosity in courage.  I came across "Radical Gratitude and other life lessons learned in Siberia" by Andrew Bienkowski and Mary Akers.  The following quote from this book – “It takes courage to be your most authentic self when others all around you are acting and pretending to be what they think is expected of them” – not only sparked my curiosity but also that of many program participants, leading to robust exploration and debate of authenticity in context of the work environment in which one works – including the impact of organisational design, dynamics and politics to lead with authenticity.

insium's newsletter on leadership: May, 2017

Written by Wednesday, 10 May 2017 00:00
Published in Newsletter

A Reflection

 

I recently had the opportunity to share the work that insium does with Imogen Kroker. I very much enjoyed and learned much from the time we spent together.  This is her reflection ...