The courageous leader needs to…..

understand that to be courageous, one must possess the ability to face difficulty, uncertainty or pain, without being overcome by fear or intimidated by consequences. Wow, that’s a mouthful and yet how many of this type of leader to you know or work for? My guess would be, not many, and why is that?
How does one do this? How does one come to this reality? How does one act on these consistently?
To help our reflection here, let me offer a few ideas .
Courageous Leaders need:
• More confidence in principles and virtues than in personalities.

-Confidence is self assurance and belief that one is living out not only one’s personal principles and virtues but that are truly in sync with the organization’s principles and virtues consistently.
• A high tolerance for ambiguity, exposure and personal loss.

– To have tolerance is not a weakness, but really a strength. Tolerance is recognizing the value of another person despite the other person’s attitude, talk, etc. Tolerance allows time to defuse whatever the emotional state is in order to get to the real issues of disagreement. Tolerance is not about power, but how one uses it.

• An acceptance of deferred gratification and simple rewards.

The age of immediate entitlement or reward is fast waning and is short llived. The concept of “reward” needs to be revisited. The simple rewards are a job well done, a great working culture, cooperation for and from all levels of the organization, etc.

• Formidable persistence and determination.

– If there is not consistency, ongoing re-enforcement of principles and the everyday living out of those principles and virtues, any positive effects will be short lived

fbucaro

Like you, business ethics and ethical leadership expert, Frank Bucaro has seen the challenges and problems of corporate leadership, particularly over the past few years in regards to poor decision-making, SEC violations, and record breaking financial settlements in a number of different industries. With over two decades of executive training, speaking, writing and with real life experiences, his view and approach to ethics in the workplace is uniquely different. He emphasizes that ethics is a moment-to-moment choice and has little to do with position, titles, personalities or education. Ethics is everybody’s responsibility from the top down. His goal is to help organizations to: a. Strengthen their ethics training initiatives in order to significantly decrease the odds of an ethical/compliance violation. b. Energize, train and motivate employees to understand the value of consistent “high road” behavior as a business advantage. c. Support individuals and thereby the organization by contributing to its success by quality, ongoing values based leadership development. Frank is known for his very practical, slightly irreverent, yet somewhat humorous approach to ethics and leadership development. His conversational style and real life stories connect with his audience in a personal, intense and practical level. Companies such as Bayer Healthcare, BP, ReMax International, EnMax Energy, Danone, etc. have partnered with Frank when they want to proactively stress the message, tools, insights and practical applications that good ethics IS good for business!