doug smith training

Some people are strong all of the time, or appear to be. They built that strength over time, thru a series of challenges, difficulties, and misses. Tension and pressure produces strength, but the effort is so big that many of us miss developing our strength or increasing its capacity. It takes courage to take something on when you do not have the strength. You aren't fooling anyone, you can't really fake it until you make it, but you can increase the strength you already have. Every time you test your strength against that tension and pressure, you get stronger.  There's no getting that by ducking out. It comes from facing the problem with courage. Courage creates strength under pressure.  With that increased strength -- more becomes possible. Leaders need the courage it takes to build the muscle you do not have, until your strength matches your courage.  -- doug smith

High performance leaders, creating beneficial change, usually encounter resistance. Change is threatening to the status quo and those people who like things just the way they are will dig in. They will push back. That's one reason why courage is one of your core leadership strengths. Develop more courage, and you will have the strength to stand your ground. Find more courage and you can make the changes you already know are needed but which have someone been stalled. Find that courage. Make that positive change. Let the resistance to change come. Courage is amused by resistance. -- doug smith

Sometimes it takes courage to get you out of the trouble that courage got you into. -- doug smith Have you ever been so bold that you regretted it? High performance leaders DO need courage. We need to be able to make the tough decisions. We need to be able to stand our ground when we are challenged by irrational or unethical demands. But, sometimes our courage gets the best of us. That courage that allowed you to insult the senior official? That's trouble, and it probably wasn't courage at all but something closer to arrogance. That courage that had you stand your ground against a tough customer? It might have cost you their business. With courage must come respect. With courage must come compassion. And, lacking either of those two critical ingredients that courage we feel might cause more trouble than we intended. When that happens only courage will get you out: the courage to apologize, the courage to correct, the courage to repair. Sometimes it takes courag...