Three Buckets of Courage

There is no growth without courage. 

In my career of 25+ years, I had several moments that required me to exhibit courage. I was a functional head in year 2008 when my growth had plateaued. I walked up to my boss and sought his able counsel. He was very clear, “If you want to grow further, you need to demonstrably contribute to topline growth or significantly increase your bottomline impact.” 

What felt a bit too direct at the time was actually a window of opportunity. I spent next 8 weeks thinking about ways to turn my function into a business unit. I went back to my boss with a detailed business plan to set up a Quality Consulting unit as an independent business unit. After much deliberation, the business unit was formed and I was given all the resources required to run it as an intrapreneur. I was subtly nudged towards acting courageously. When I demonstrated readiness to leap, I was provided with all the required support. That opportunity allowed me to travel across the globe, meet customers, understand their challenges, offer solutions, provide consulting support, sell services and contribute substantially to organization’s growth. It enabled my evolution and defined the trajectory of my career.

This experience shaped a lot of my thinking about how to be courageous and help my people be courageous. Subsequently, as a business leader, I helped many individuals in taking leap of faith in the direction of their dreams. People exhibit courage only when they are surrounded by a supportive environment that offers safety, inspiration and meaningful challenges.

Three Buckets of Courage

In December 2023 Edition of The Leadership Development Carnival hosted by the amazing Julie Winkle Giulioni, I came across a brilliant post titled The Three Buckets of Courage by Bill Treasurer. The post expands on the topic of courage and introduces three buckets of courage. Courage manifests itself in action, belief and words – or as Bill describes – Try Courage, Trust Courage and Tell Courage.

TRY Courage is the courage of first attempts or as Seth Godin asks “When was the last time you did something for the first time?”. Trying new things in small bets is often a great way to see if it works. TRUST Courage is about letting go of formulas that worked in the past, our preconceptions about how things should be and our need to control. Trusting requires some degree of surrender and belief. In leadership context, ability to win trust of people when taking bold decisions as well as providing an environment of trust where people can take bold decisions in their domain of work is a critical precondition to lead others. TELL Courage is courage to express yourself authentically and fully. This has everything to do with creating Psychological Safety for people to express their true opinions without fear. According to Bill, this bucket needs the most filling in teams and organizations. 

I found out that Bill’s blog post is based on a fantastic book that he has written titled “Courage Goes to Work: How to Build Backbones, Boost Performance, and Get Results” which I recommend you to check out. In the book, Bill offers strategies to build a culture of Courage in teams and organizations. 

Bill’s work is fascinating and I took some visual notes while going through it all. I hope you find it useful in your context. 

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