Leaders sometimes struggle to adopt a mindset that centers emotional courage, a necessary element to build strong organizational cultures that prioritize people. When leaders understand this, they can tackle the toughest challenges and drive impact... with teams that trust them.

Now you can use a FREE checklist to self-assess and understand where you need to model emotional courage behaviors as a compassionate leader.

The Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy examines organizational transformation as something that first relies on everyone in the organization having the sense that they belong there and are part of the group.

Amy Edmondson, Novartis professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School, and renowned for her research on psychological safety, explains how teams thrive when people feel safe to speak up and take risks (even if they fail), and leaders play a crucial role in creating this culture. "If you don't like taking a risk, you are taking a risk. You're taking the risk of stagnation … We need to continue to help people shift their mindsets from, 'I got this' to, 'I wonder what would happen if …”

Emotional courage is required to effectively lead people and teams, and it's often overlooked as essential for organizational culture-building and systems change.

Forbes asserts that successful organizations that have healthy growth, sustainability, and profitability understand the importance of shared values and the connection to improved communication, building stronger relationships, and increased performance and results. But without values-based leadership, there can be no real authenticity to the guiding principles an organization seeks to live and operate by.