Tue, 26 May 2026 11:11:41 -0700WeeblyFri, 24 Jun 2011 22:26:13 GMThttps://www.ethicalleadership.org/gs-blog-8/what-is-courageous-collaboration Mark Twain once famously said that courage is not the absence of fear, but the resistance of fear, the mastery of fear, and the ability to move into challenges despite our fears.  Derived from the French word coeur, meaning heart, courage is feeling afraid and acting anyway. 
Courage is a physical act, such as climbing a mountain or dashing in front of traffic to pull someone out of danger.  But more importantly for today’s leaders, courage is an internal quality which enables us to stand up for what we believe is right.

Many think this second type of courage is more difficult and Twain also noted that “It is curious, that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”  We believe that it is possible to foster this type of courage in ourselves and our groups.  The Center for Ethical Leadership’s new book brings this type of courage to the surface.  Courageous Collaboration with Gracious Space: From Small Openings to Profound Transformation outlines the inner qualities that individuals and groups can develop in order to be more courageous together.

These qualities include creating psychological safety, building deep and trusting relationships, taking risks that matter and being in an extended state of collective creativity.  Perhaps the crux move here is being open to risk.  Many times groups form close bonds, but then won’t bring up the hard issues (such as “elephants” in the room or other unmentionables) because they don’t want to damage their hard-earned relationships.  But in order for groups to break through areas of stuckness and be in truly generative territory, they need to take such risks.  Developing this skill is what creates courageous collaboration.

Most groups are comprised of well-meaning people who nevertheless find themselves in situations of conflict with others they work with.  “We wrote this book because people were contacting us for help in building relationships and having the important conversations that will move their communities and organizations forward,” said Dale Nienow, Executive Director at the Center for Ethical Leadership.  “We cannot stay stuck at the level of niceness.  We need to move past civility to a deeper level where we can have the challenging conversations that will make a real difference.”

Courageous Collaboration invites us to reframe and reclaim collaboration as more than simply working together on a shared project. Courageous Collaboration asks us to bring our best stuff, and be open to the mysteries, surprises and uncertainties that lie in group work and change efforts.   We may need to dust off our courage and try something new.  It may not go right on the first try, but one thing is for sure—if we wait until the conditions are perfect, we’ll probably never act boldly or find new territory.

So don’t be afraid to courageously collaborate.  Or, more precisely, it's okay to be afraid, but go ahead and do it anyway.  As A.A. Milne told us, we are braver than we believe, and stronger than we seem, and smarter than we think.

The new book "Courageous Collaboration with Gracious Space" is now available for purchase in the Publications section of our web site. ]]>