Warren Bennis, described as a “renowned leadership scholar” (Jablin, 2006, p. 102), espouses that “courage is the ‘X’ factor that can make or break corporate America” (as cited in Jablin, 2006, p. 102).  In Australia, could courage have deterred the fraudulent activity of the leadership of HIH Insurance that led to their insolvency in 2001?  Could courage have averted the recent need for the many apologies from CEO Shayne Elliott on behalf of the ANZ Bank to its customers (Remeikis, 2016)?  Might courage enable Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to deliver on promises made prior to our most recent Federal election?  Certainly, the leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, has challenged Turnbull to have courage to lead his party (Conifer, 2016).

My recent Master of Applied Positive Psychology Capstone paper establishes the case for courage as an enabler of leadership, providing argument and a framework for developing a measurable, outcomes-based intervention to build courage.  Specifically, it proposed that building courage will enable authentic leadership behaviour in senior and executive leaders, with an additional positive impact on leader workplace wellbeing. 

My paper combines academic theory with practitioner evidence – including my own sixteen years’ experience as a practitioner in the field of leadership and organisational culture development.  The aforementioned definition of courage – which I have developed – is the foundation for this paper and for my proposed intervention.  This intervention uses narrative methodology to build courage, with measures of leader’s workplace courage, authentic leadership and workplace wellbeing taken pre- and post-intervention.  It is anticipated that each of these measures will show positive shifts in behaviour over time. 

I am very excited about this new direction in my work and believe it can be of significant benefit to organisations.  Please don't hesitate to call or email me if you’d like to discuss this further.

Dina

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