Latest / Lead With Clarity: Practical Insight for Senior Leaders / The Courage in Your Circle
Transcript
- Blake Holman: Welcome to Lead with Clarity. This is a space for leaders who want to grow without losing themselves in the process. Each episode is a short reflection on leadership, influence, and the inner work that shapes how we show up for others. It's not hype, not noise, just clear thinking for the journey of leading well. Today's episode is entitled The Courage in Your Circle. Here we go. Think about the last time you did something that genuinely scared you as a leader. A hard conversation, a bold decision. A moment where you stepped into something uncertain and came out the other side. Now ask yourself this, who was in the room before that moment? Who did you talk to first? Most leaders credit themselves for their courage. And I'd push back on that, not to diminish them, but because courage is almost never a solo performance. Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher, put it plainly when he said, it is not that I am brave, it is that those I choose to be with give me courage. Let's listen to that again. It is not that I am brave. It is that those I choose to be with give me courage. He doesn't say courage comes from within. He doesn't say it comes from discipline or mindset. He says it comes from those he chooses to be with. A philosopher who spent his life thinking about what it means to live well and his answer to courage was relational proximity. That's not a small thing. I've worked with a lot of senior leaders over the years. And one of the patterns I see most consistently is this. The leaders who navigate hard times well, who make the call no one else wants to make, who hold the line when everything is uncertain, they're almost never operating in isolation. They have a person, sometimes a small group of people, and those people don't tell them what to do. They don't remove the risk. What they do is make the leader feel capable of handling whatever comes. That's borrowed courage, and it's real. The structure of your inner circle is a strategic decision. It's not just about friendship or loyalty. It's about who calibrates your perception of what's possible. That calibration happens every single day, whether you're thinking about it or not. Here's where leaders get this wrong. They read Seneca's words and think it's about finding someone brave, finding a mentor who is not afraid or finding people who will hype them up. That's not it at all. The people who give you courage are not necessarily fearless. They're steady. They're honest. They've navigated hard things and they carry that in the way that they show up. When you're in proximity to someone like that, your nervous system takes a signal. Your sense of what's survivable shifts. It's not cheerleading. It's evidence. Living proof that difficulty can be walked through. So here's the reframe. Stop asking whether you're courageous enough to lead. Start asking whether the people around you are giving you access to courage. Look at your five closest professional relationships. Are those people expanding your capacity for risk? Are they modeling calm under pressure? Do they challenge your assumptions or just confirm them? If the answer is mostly the latter, that's not a reflection of your character. It's a structural gap in your environment. And structural gaps can be closed. You get to choose your circle. Most leaders don't treat that as a deliberate act. Seneca would say that's the most important leadership decision you make. Before your next significant decision, before your next hard conversation, ask yourself one question. Who do I need to be in proximity to right now? Not who will validate the decision. Who will make you feel capable of navigating the outcome, whatever that is? That's your person. Be intentional about getting in front of them before the moment demands it. Seneca lived in one of the most politically volatile periods in Roman history. He survived the Emperor Caligula. He navigated exile. He served in the court of Nero. And he never stopped writing about how to live well under pressure. His answer was not personal toughness alone. It was intentional community. The right people, chosen deliberately, kept close. Leadership hasn't changed that much. The pressure is different. The stakes look different. But the need for the right people in your circle is exactly what it has always been. Irreplaceable. Choose your circle like your leadership depends on it, because it does.