Wanted: A CLO With Courage

We are seeking a CLO adept at recognizing the unique intrinsic values inherent in "everyday people," the employees who make up the heart of the company. Our organization�s cultural tenets suggest everyday people display courage constantly and subtly. Split-second heroism and everyday courage are not the same, and courage is much more complex than spontaneous reactions to stressful events�-- it dwells in the ordinary and everyday choices, not the extraordinary.

We think our employee base can embrace this level of courage understanding and pass it on to others through idea exchanges, mentoring, "managing up" and simple words of encouragement. But do you know how?

Our ultimate goal in defining and understanding courage is to make it a virtue that places value on behaviors other than heroic endeavors. Our new CLO will perpetuate our intent to summon the true meaning of courage ("heart and spirit") into our professional lives.

Becoming aware of the behaviors and rewards of courage, our employees will become more empowered to discern and better respond to the inherent energy of the virtue of courage. "Virtue" in Latin means "energy," and our new CLO will understand that hiding courage drains the vital energy from our culture in the form of imaginative thinking, wise decision-making, sound deduction and common vision. This energy is different from sensational actions or spur-of-the-moment energy.

The CLO who contributes at his or her highest level will be astute to recognize the courage paradoxes that pervade all environments. As with all virtues, courage is abstract. Most people will have grown up learning other virtues such as honesty, integrity, humor and maybe even grace. But courage is the forgotten virtue because people do not recognize its significance in their everyday actions.

Our new hire will focus on courage as a state of being such as an individual who makes quiet sacrifices to blaze a trail in support of principles and results that benefit the entire organizational culture. We are looking for subtle guidance from a gifted and talented CLO who will shift the "perspective lens" so that our employees begin not only to understand but to practice the art of being present in courage�-- present to our actions, outcomes, values and integrity. Once this courageous state of being is established, everyone finds the innate motivation to step up. (The opposite is dragging our feet.) We might even begin to sense a higher level of courage consciousness, "where courage meets grace."