Courage: The Backbone of Leadership

People Are Talking About Courage

"Gus Lee, in this well-written and useful book, demystifies courage and reveals what it is made of: integrity, competence, and good judgment."
—Warren Bennis, distinguished professor of business, University of Southern California

"When it comes to leadership, Gus Lee has walked the walk and talked the talk. Now in his latest book, he offers all of us who call ourselves leaders a primer on how to gain and maintain in ourselves and our organizations that critical element that makes the difference—courage!"
—H. Norman Schwarzkopf, General, U.S. Army, Retired

"The philosophy and intuitions within Courage apply well to any enterprise in which great difficulties and failure loom and fear is the typical response—including, for this reader, the writing of novels. May we continue to be reminded often why 'character' is what we must establish clearly from the beginning and then keep vital and fresh."
—Amy Tan, author, The Joy Luck Club, The Bonesetter's Daughter, and Saving Fish From Drowning

"Courage carries a ringing message about the power and the obligation for leaders to take a stand for doing the right thing the right way. In an ever more complex world, this message should resonate in each of us, leaders large and small."
—Michael D. Thieneman, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Whirlpool Corporation

"I have always enjoyed developing good managers into great leaders. Courage is a superb tool to accomplish that goal. It actually brought tears to my eyes, and I am going to give a copy to my son."
—John Gerdelman, chairman, Intelliden Corporation

"Great thanks to Gus Lee for this powerful book about courage that he so correctly calls the backbone of leadership. It is a splendid gem with essential wisdom for everyone, but especially for leaders of character on the battlefield, in the marketplace, in our communities, or for anyone who needs to, as he says, cross the river, to make a positive difference."
—Fred M. Franks, Four-Star General, U.S. Army, Retired; coauthor with Tom Clancy, Into the Storm: A Study in Command; Commanding General, VII Corps, Desert Storm

"Long before the invention of the corporation, we were hardwired to show courage regardless of risk to ourselves. Even today, without courage, nothing—from our relationships to our firms—is safe"

—From the Introduction

Scandals in business and politics are the lead stories on the national news. Aside from public outrage, not much has changed. This is because the power to change does not come from information, but from modeling and practicing the learnable behaviors of courage. Many of us tolerate unethical acts, emotional abuse, and routine moral weakness. At work, we look away from character failings, tolerate ethical compromises, avoid conflict, and feel stuck in moral gridlock. Yet studies show that ethical businesses profit more in the long term and that morally courageous leaders inspire their organizations toward sustained success. In other words, integrity and character drive profits.

In Courage, Gus Lee captures the essential component of leadership in measurable behaviors. Using actual stories from Whirlpool, Kaiser Permanente, IntegWare, WorldCom, and other organizations, Lee shows how highly successful executives face and overcome their fears to develop moral intelligence. These real-world examples offer practical lessons for rooting out unethical practices and behaviors by

• Assessing them for rightness and integrity

• Addressing moral failures

• Following through with dialogue and direct action

An award-winning leader, teacher, and ethicist, two-time Army Meritorious Service Medal recipient, four-time corporate whistleblower, former VP, senior executive, and paratrooper, Gus Lee has experienced firsthand the power and benefits of moral courage and shares them in this book.

Publishers Weekly

In this guide to doing the right thing, Lee presents a self-help approach to solving hard-edged problems. The key to effective leadership, he argues, is "principled conduct under pressure"-in short, courage. While courage is hardly the one-size-fits-all magic bullet that Lee envisions, much of his advice is valuable, particularly that dealing with communication, the thorniest management issue of all. The book is built around extended anecdotes about executives facing tough personnel decisions and having to confront their habits of "avoidant communication," and Lee's reconstructed dialogue is engaging, realistic and instructive. He also offers periodic references to his own, genuinely inspiring transition from myopic, alienated wimp to successful executive, lawyer, executive coach, consultant and bestselling novelist (China Boy, etc.). Granted, this business book has many of the problems typical of the genre: the constant invoking of the book's title, whether or not relevant to the point being made; the regular introduction of acronymed concepts and clumsy coinages; the inspirational speeches and the occasional royal we phrasing ("We now see the difference between high, medium and low core values"). But any book that offers a road map to handling unpleasant workplace conversations is welcome-even if the choices in your everyday life don't require as much courage as in Lee's scenarios. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Gus Lee is a best-selling author and nationally-recognized expert on leadership and ethics. He has been a successful lawyer, board member, and executive and is adjunct staff at the Center for Creative Leadership and the US Department of Justice. He graduated from West Point, and served as an army JAG attorney and paratrooper. He speaks frequently to a broad range of organizations and educational institutions including the Smithsonian, Bank of America, the FBI, Levi Strauss, MCI, Intel, Kaiser Permanente, Lucent, Whirlpool, West Point, USAF, the DEA, Harvard, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. He has also appeared on many major TV and radio shows.

His previous books include the best-selling novels China Boy (a New York Times Best Book selection now in its 17th printing), Honor and Duty, Tiger's Tail, and No Physical Evidence. He has also written a nonfiction book, Chasing Hepburn, and contributed to Time magazine, Encyclopedia Britannica, and other anthologies. Through his company, Integrenomics, he has created several assessments and skill-building tools about courage and character. He grew up in San Francisco and now lives in Colorado Springs.

Diane Elliott-Lee is a distinguished and award-winning clinical nurse specialist. She has helped edit Gus's five previous books and provided the guidance, inspiration, and structure for this book.