Be careful to notice what you are looking for. You might miss the very thing you were hoping for, assuming it wouldn’t be there.
If you don’t look for it, you certainly won’t see it - but it doesn’t always mean it isn’t there.
Perspectives, reflections, lessons, learning on living and leading with courage
Caroline Pankhurst joins Jeremy Blain on his rethink leadership podcast to discuss:-
What courage as a leader means, and why it is so relevant today
Finding the courage to fight for greater gender equity at leadership and management levels everywhere
The role of male leaders in moving from allyship to advocacy and action
How a more collective and diverse approach to leadership which will benefit everyone
Listeners have commented: -
What is courage? And what are courageous actions?
Some big questions tackled in this podcast. I love what 🧠 Caroline Pankhurst ❤️🔥 is doing with the 'be braver' collective - equality and the journey to achieving it is powerful, creating a place where collaboration and community embolden all, not the few.
Great inspiration shared around some challenging topics. Your words have really got me thinking about personal courage - where it comes from and how it manifests itself in the work we are developing. A character trait that I feel we are all guilty of not recognising in ourselves.
We all need to Be Braver. Braver as men at being advocates, braver as women at spotting the stories we've been told that limit us. Braver collectively to create change.
To collectively accept the reality of the society we find ourselves in and to take shared responsibility for the future we create in it.
To leverage the courage of women for the powerful changes and futures it can create for all of us. To have the courage to accept that to level the playfield we all have a responsibility to change the game.
You’ve been brave before. You know you can Be Braver again.
But you are stuck.
Procrastinating. Avoiding the questions that hold the answers you need.
You don’t want to feel uncomfortable. Go through the messy bit to get to the good bit.
Feel alone. A bit embarrassed or ashamed perhaps that you think or feel like this. Haven’t wanted to share it.
So you keep your head down. Hope someone or something comes along out there and it all sorts itself out. Wait for the universe to present a solution or hope for circumstances to change.
Well we all know there are no heroes in most of our lives. That if you want to stand a chance of meeting one you are going to have to #beyourownhero.
Which also means as you get to design your own costume which can be a lot of fun.
Most of the things we want to make happen in life do so because of a decision or a choice that we made. Not someone else.
Our circumstances might not have been our own design. But where we go next very much is.
You have never been stronger than where you are today. You might not feel it. But it is true.
Today you have the most amount of knowledge, experience and wisdom to draw upon than you have had at any other point in your life. You are in the best position you have ever been.
Your struggles are your strengths.
Today is the best day to Be Braver.
You need to do 4 things to Be Braver.
Have all 4 of these attended to, connecting and working together - and you will have everything you need to create change, live fear-lessly and lead courageously.
In a way that feels purposeful, meaningful and motivating.
Learning to Be Braver is a pathway to learning to live fear-lessly and lead courageously.
Identify and understand your values and vision. Essential for moving forward authentically. The lenses to make sense of difficult moral and ethical decisions. The motivators for creating change.
Examining your own experiences and competences to build confidence, and to keep building on it. Be able to appropriately appraise your abilities, limitations and strengths. Separate out your beliefs about your competencies and skills from the reality.
Understand how you connect to and read the environment around you. With your emotions, with others, with networks and communities. There is an abundance of resources and information to strengthen your confidence and sharpen your clarity. Question what you see and where you are.
Understand your relationship with risk. Personally and professionally. Know what your version of resilience looks like in the face of adversity and failure. Be ready to take values-aligned action. Fear-lessly. To know when it is right to choose courage. So that when called upon. You will be able to. Over and over again. With less fear.
Choosing to Be Braver doesn’t guarantee success any more than avoiding it guarantees doom and gloom. But your chances are undoubtably far greater - courage always rewards in unexpected ways.
It does guarantee that you will be stronger, more courageous, authentic for it. You will be who you are becoming. That you will have pride in your actions and decisions.
That you don’t regret the things you didn’t do, but are proud of things you did.
So as you think about who you want to be. Who you are becoming. Are maybe frustrated because you feel stuck, think you are your own worst enemy.
Remember. You have been brave before, you can be braver again. That in becoming the person you want to be, the only hero you will ever need is the one that you will be.
As this Meta-analysis suggests programmes, like the Be Braver Practitioner programme that seek to raise curiosity can have the effect of increases in #creativity, #innovation, life satisfaction, life meaning, #performance and job satisfaction.
In Be Braver - we start with curiosity to explore how we gain the #clarity pertaining to our role, vision, values and ambitions so we can apply this to both personal and professional contexts.
Driven by this unique blueprint, we seek to critically appraise what this shows us in respect to our confidence as a leader, our skills, competences and beliefs about the self and others.
Creating #connection comes from a place of curiosity about the world, environments and emotional connections with have to the abundance of resources and relationships available to us.
To build on our vision, to support making values aligned decisions. To grow confidence.
Clarity, confidence, and connection fuel our commitment in the moments where we need to choose courage - it is our curiosity to see what we find on the others side of our courageous values- aligned decisions that can make all the difference as to whether we listen to the risks of avoiding or the risks of taking action.
If you really want to ask your self the questions that can make the biggest difference - try our Be Brave questionnaire
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12144-022-03107-w.pdf