COURAGE OVER FEAR

Two executive consultants lay out measures to build courage in corporate leadership.

In their debut collaboration, Kavanaugh and Randolph, co-founders of Austin, Texas-based leadership consultancy The Agency Initiative, open their discussion with a series of questions that often plague managers, such as “What if we would’ve acted differently? What if we could've seized opportunities we missed at the time?” Such concerns, they point out, are only heightened in a modern era of rapid technological change, which only increases the challenges facing corporate teams. To illustrate these and other issues facing leaders, the authors create two fictional “composite characters,” Taylor and Justin, to dramatize the stories of their “Everyman-ager.” At one point, for example, Taylor must integrate a new AI tool with her team: “Taylor made a decision: she wasn’t going to let fear dictate her leadership any longer.” The authors stress that a corrosive “tsunami of fear-driven and fear-based leadership” has made courageous and ethical leadership more necessary than ever, and they clearly draw on their extensive professional experience throughout. However, some of the lessons they draw from it may puzzle some readers. For instance, Kavanaugh relates an incident in which a junior subordinate went to an important superior behind her back to make a briefing that went horribly, but she describes her decision to angrily reprimand that subordinate as a mistake, despite the fact that “the progress we’d made on the program was now in jeopardy because of a single, rushed meeting.” Still, the authors’ passion for transparency and risk-taking on behalf of corporate leaders will doubtless be inspiring to readers approaching similar roles.

A passionate, example-driven examination of what makes good leadership in changing times.