Leaders in the margin face higher risks than their counterparts in more stable divisions of the corporation. While some risks can be mitigated and others reduced, such as through diversification, they cannot be eliminated. In the extreme, these risks threaten not only business performance but the leader's personal life. Deals gone bad in business can damage careers, income, and family situations.
Coming over to Europe from the US with a company inexperienced in international relocations to take a position in an emerging business practice was a big risk - not only professionally, but personally as well. July 9th will represent our first full year in Europe. We have taken some hits and experienced many highs.
This next year is full of risks professionally and, by extension, personally as well. Will I come to regret this move? Will the price we pay be more than the benefits we receive? I don't know. How does one continue to progress forward in the face of these questions? I guess that's courage.
Here are some quotes on the subject of courage to keep it up this next month:
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow." - Mary Anne Radmacher
"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." - C.S. Lewis
"The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy." - John F. Kennedy
"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance." - Aesop
"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." - Mark Twain(from Quote Garden: http://www.quotegarden.com/)
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