Simon Sinek argues courage is the defining trait of great leaders. Constant pressure from financial markets and survival concerns pushes people toward short-term thinking. Resisting those pressures and prioritizing what matters requires unbelievable courage, which comes from having people around you who believe in you.
Chapters
I get asked very often, what are the most important characteristics of leadership? Vision, charisma. I know plenty of incredible leaders that aren't big Steve Jobs visionaries. They're just not. And I know some fantastic leaders who do not have charisma. They're quiet and super introverted and they're just not that exciting to talk, to spend time with.
When I say charisma, I mean the traditional definition of it, which is more about energy. I believe charisma is undying belief in something and that they have in spades. But I think courage. I think courage is the one thing that all great leaders have to have. Because we are surrounded by overwhelming forces every day of our lives pushing us to play the finite game. If you're a public company, the markets, all they want for their own selfish gain is for you to make short term decisions. The pressures are overwhelming.
If you're a numbers driven person, the pressures are overwhelming. If you're in survival mode, the pressures are overwhelming. If you have a spouse who spends more money than you can make, the pressures are overwhelming.
All the pressures around us, even the way we treat competition versus rivalry, we feel like we have to win, win, win all the time. The pressures every day on us are absolutely overwhelming. For us to be finite and to prioritize the short term over the long term, to prioritize the urgent over the important. And it takes unbelievable courage to put the important before the urgent. It takes unbelievable courage to resist all the pressures coming from selfish outside parties. It takes unbelievable pressure to do the right thing. So yeah, courage is it.
Which begs the question, how do you get courage? Yeah. And the answer is you got to have people in your life who love you and believe in you. You got to have friends, you got to have colleagues.
You got to have employees that when you just don't have it in you, you just don't think you can. You just don't. You just don't have it. Somebody says, I got your back, I believe in you.
