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 The
step-by-step development of courage in yourself is the first responsibility
of
leadership. The second responsibility is to develop and
instill courage in others, your staff, your children, your spouse, and your
friends. But you must begin with yourself because you can’t give away
something that you don’t have. You can only encourage others to the degree
to which you experience and demonstrate courage yourself. You set the tone
and determine the standard.
Control Your Fear
Here’s the first rule: “Everyone is
afraid.” You’re afraid, I’m afraid, everyone you meet is afraid
in some way, often in many ways. As Mark Twain said, “Courage is
not absence of fear; it is control of fear, mastery of fear.”
The brave person is the person who acts in spite of his or her
fear, who faces the fear, feels the fear and moves forward
regardless.
Here’s the second rule: “Fears
diminish and lose their power over you as you confront them and
move toward them; conversely, every time you back away from a
fear situation, the fear grows and becomes more powerful.”
Confront Your Fear
The only way to develop courage is
to consciously and continuously make a habit of confronting your
fear of treating every fear-inducing situation as a challenge
and as an opportunity to become stronger, more resolute.
Do
the Thing You Fear
 Here’s
the third rule: “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is
certain.” Psychologists call this the process of “systematic
desensitization,” doing it over and over until it holds no fear for you
at all. Many businesspeople who have been so afraid of
public speaking that they couldn’t lead a silent prayer in a
phone booth have used this process of eliminating fear. By going to
meeting after meeting of Toastmasters International, speaking and
getting
feedback each time, they have developed competence and
confidence where once they experienced only terror. So can you.
Action Exercises
Here are two ways to apply these
rules to develop courage in yourself.
First, confront your fears directly
and immediately. Whenever you feel afraid for any reason, do it
anyway! You’ll be amazed at your success.
Second, do the thing you fear over
and over until it has no more power over you. The more you
repeat the action, the more courage and confidence you will
have.
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