The Courage Of Our Convictions

Photo by Torsten Dederichs on Unsplash

One of the hardest but most valuable abilities we can develop is the ability to maintain strength in our convictions, our beliefs and our vision. This is true in all walks of life, but particularly so where you’ve been tasked with achieving a specific objective or leading a team towards a particular end goal.

In that quest, you are called upon to define the specific path, chart out how best to navigate it, and then, as you embark on the journey, bring others with you. That journey, of course, will rarely (if ever), be linear - it will be full of challenges, twists and turns along the way. 

Some of these challenges will be minor. Others will be material - material enough to sometimes challenge our initial assumptions, our personal abilities (as well as those of our teams) and, many times, our base level belief that we can even get there. These challenges, of course, don’t only come from within us, they come from, and are often fueled by, those around us, both within our teams and those without. 

That’s very much a reality of life - those around us will all have their own ideas, convictions, biases and baggage to bring to the situation. And many will be vocal - either directly to your face or (far worse) in a passive aggressive manner, to those around you. 

The ability to endure and stay true to your convictions is a strength, if not a superpower.

But how do we do this? 

After all, the risk we worry about is that we will become insular, and stop canvassing the kind of external feedback that makes us better. That we don’t hear and accept feedback that might help us, even save us.

I don’t think there are easy answers, but I think it’s worth asking ourselves a few foundational questions:

Are we working to achieve a core underlying vision? Can we see an exciting and inspiring end state that we are moving towards? Do we believe in it?

Is that vision focused on achieving an overarching ‘value’ goal? Are we making something, in some way, better? (Hint: making money is not one.)

Are we genuine in the construction and assembling of the building blocks that will get us there? Have we given this the thought that it needs and worked to configure our ‘ability to execute’ properly? From our people to our processes to our systems?

Are we executing in good faith and with a clear conscience? Are we doing the ‘right’ things? (I appreciate that the word ‘right’ is a soft one to use, but I think, in our work, we tend to know what is and isn’t ‘right’.)

In this execution, are we focused on the meaningful and not the cosmetic? On the things that matter and not those that simply ‘look good’? Where our people are focused on the work and the value?

If so, I believe we’re on the right path, and having the courage of our convictions is very much merited. 

Believe in yourself, stay the course, and keep executing.

Of course, not everyone will be happy. There are those that will disagree, some much more than others. The key is to find those people who may disagree but still respect and work to the path set out, ready to be (genuinely) convinced by real world data along the way. (And for those that don’t, it’s best for them to leave - or be moved out - lest they engender toxicity within the ecosystem.)

Having the courage of our convictions is essential, especially as a leader. It is, so long as we are true to our mission, a superpower.