Courage Is Caged in the Workplace

Breakdowns and disruptions that hinder an organization’s advancement rarely have to do with unskilled employees or employees missing “hard skills.” Why? Most people are hired based on their technical, theoretical and strategic hard skills. During the interview process, candidates can generally land a position if they can articulate the “gold star” accomplishments that glitter their resume. Conversely, the interviewer hopes there are no hidden cards in the deck that they did not flush out. 

All is well until that employee is faced with serious or subtle situations that challenge a breach in their duties, such as falsifying marketing tests, accounting irregularities, speaking false rhetoric or choosing to “hear no evil, speak no evil,” thereby not questioning authority. These potential dilemmas expose the buried cards that the employer did not ferret out. They are the other side of the coin—the “soft skills.” 

Case in point: While preparing to conduct an all-day “Courage Leadership” symposium for a large association, the deputy director of legal services for a state school board association wanted to attend the program, but was having difficulty persuading his boss that the expense would be worthwhile. After all, it was soft skills, with no demonstrable return on investment (ROI), and therefore not applicable to the work environment. He requested additional benefits not featured in the program outline. I sent back this thought: If his boss had hired all the best hard-skilled employees, then why was organizational depravity so pervasive at Enron, WorldCom, Coca Cola, Tyco, the Red Cross, Disney and United Way, to name a few biggies? Businesses are destroyed by the courageous lapses of their leaders, and their remains clutter our corporate landscape. Why? Courage is caged in the workplace.