5 Ways to Build Courage as a Leader
THE LEADERSHIP EDGE NEWSLETTER JUNE 2026 | Your Guide to Exceptional Leadership
By Don Frericks · CEO Advisor & Executive Leadership Coach
The research is unambiguous on this: courage is not a fixed trait you either have or don't. It's a learnable, practicable skill — one that can be deliberately developed in any leader willing to do the work.
But let me say something before we get to the research: I have spent decades coaching executives, and the courage deficit is the most common — and most costly — leadership problem I see. Leaders who know exactly what needs to be said and don't say it. Who see exactly what needs to change and look away. Who understand precisely what someone needs to hear and give them something softer instead.
"The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization." — Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers
If that's true, and in my experience it absolutely is, then courage isn't optional. Here's how to build it.
Clarify Your Values — Then Close the Gap:
Ask yourself: where in the last 90 days did your behavior contradict your values? That gap is exactly where your courage work begins.
Virtually every stream of courage research starts at the same place: values clarity. Leaders who act courageously aren't fearless — they're anchored. When you know exactly who you are and what you stand for, the cost of not acting becomes more intolerable than the cost of acting.
Brené Brown's seven-year study on daring leadership identified "living into our values" as one of four core courage skills. She defines it as closing the gap between what you say you believe and how you actually behave under pressure.
Courage isn't built by thinking about it. It's built by identifying the moments where you drifted from your values — and choosing differently the next time.
For Leaders: Name your top three values. Then honestly ask: where in the last 90 days did your behavior contradict them? Start there?
Stop Armoring Up — Walk Through Vulnerability Instead
In your next team meeting, share something you got wrong recently. Not as performance — as practice. Notice if others follow your lead.
Here's Brené Brown's most counterintuitive finding, drawn from over 11,000 data points across two decades: she could not find a single example of courage that was not born of vulnerability. Not one.
Most leaders do the opposite. They armor up — with cynicism, perfectionism, over-control, or emotional distance — precisely to avoid the discomfort of being seen as uncertain, wrong, or human. Brown's research shows that armor doesn't protect leaders. It corrodes trust, disconnects teams, and prevents the honest engagement that courage requires.
Acknowledging uncertainty. Admitting mistakes. Asking for help. These are not signs of weakness. They are the on-ramp to genuine leadership courage. As Brown puts it: "You cannot get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability."
For Leaders: At your next team meeting, share something you got wrong recently. Not as a performance — as genuine practice. Notice if others follow your lead.
Start Small — Courage Is Built Through Small Acts
Identify one conversation you've been avoiding. Have it this week — not perfectly, but honestly.
Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati, drawing on more than 200 interviews for his 2025 book How to Be Bold, makes a point I've seen confirmed over and over in my coaching work: courage is built through progressive exposure, not grand gestures. It's a muscle. It strengthens with use and weakens with avoidance.
Each difficult conversation not avoided, each moment of saying "I don't know" in a room that expected certainty, each time you told someone the truth when it would have been easier not to — these acts compound. They build both the skill and the evidence ("I did it before; I can do it again") that sustains courage under real pressure.
For Leaders: What's the one conversation you've been putting off? Have it this week. Not perfectly — honestly.
Build Psychological Safety — Courage Requires a Container
Ask your team: "What's the one thing nobody is saying in our meetings that everyone is thinking?" Then listen without defending.
Individual courage and organizational courage are related but distinct. Amy Edmondson's research at Harvard established that psychological safety — the shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking — is the single strongest predictor of team performance that Google's Project Aristotle identified. It outperformed IQ, seniority, and diversity combined.
Her research revealed a striking paradox: the highest-performing teams reported more errors, not fewer. Not because they were making more mistakes — but because they felt safe enough to admit them. Teams that looked perfect were simply hiding problems.
The conclusion I draw: interpersonal risk is business risk. If you want courageous people around you, you have to build the conditions that make courage possible. Courage is partly a structural problem, not just a personal one.
For Leaders: Ask your team: "What's the one thing nobody is saying in our meetings that everyone is thinking?" Then stay quiet and listen — without defending.
Anchor to Purpose — Courage Needs Fuel
Ask yourself: "Who am I leading for? Am I building meaningful connections and pulling them toward something that matters?"
Gulati's research identifies two things that sustain courage over time: meaningful connections and a compelling purpose. Both are about moving courage out of the individual and into something larger. Isolated leaders are timid leaders. Purpose-driven leaders are structurally more capable of courageous action.
When leading well becomes about others — your people, your mission, the future you're trying to build — the personal cost of courage shrinks relative to the cost of silence.
One more thing Gulati found: staying calm — specifically by learning to regulate the neurological fear response rather than suppress it — is a distinct and powerful development strategy. Leaders who learned to name, observe, and work with their fear (rather than be driven by it) made better decisions under pressure and sustained courage over longer timeframes. Bravery is not the absence of fear. It is the mastery of it.
For Leaders: Revisit your leadership purpose. Can you state it in one sentence — one that's entirely about what you create for others? If you can't, that's where to start.
A Final Thought
Courage is not something you either have or don't. It's something you build, one hard conversation at a time, one honest moment at a time, one decision to put your people over your comfort at a time. Trust is the most important leadership asset you have. Vulnerability, the willingness to tell the truth even when it costs you, is the trust multiplier. You cannot mobilize others from a position of fear.