The First Responsibility of Leadership
By Brian Tracy
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, your friends. But you must begin with yourself because you canīt give away something that you donīt 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.
Courage Is Mastery of Fear
#1 Hereīs the first rule: "Everyone is afraid."
Youīre afraid, Iīm 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.
#2 Confront Your Fears
Hereīs 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."
Make It A Habit
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.
#3 Do The Thing You Fear
Hereīs 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 couldnīt lead a silent prayer in a phone booth have used this process of eliminating fear.