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