Heading into the New Year and thinking about the clients I’ve coached in 2023, it’s their courage I’m finding myself reflecting on.

One is striving to return to work after long covid, another is smashing the non-executive director space, one is launching a homewares retail brand in his 50’s, and another has landed a senior teaching role despite losing their job and self-confidence earlier in the year. All have dug deep to overcome fear and self-doubt and taken calculated risks to get to where they are.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines courage as “having the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty”. Career courage can manifest itself in many ways; it helps us re-enter the workplace following redundancy, job loss or long-term absence; it helps us change tack when our career no longer aligns with our values; it helps us stick to a dream when it feels just that; and it propels us forward to meet our ambitions.

More widely, courage at work can make us stand up for what’s right, it can precipitate new business opportunities and it can make us a caring and daring leader.

Courage is about being mindful of the risks and making the conscious decision to do something anyway. The key word here is conscious, so while courage is a skill that can be honed and taking risks brings growth, organisational behaviour expert Kathleen Reardon argues for rigourous planning before acting, namely to set goals, build relationships, pick our battles and the right time, and always have a back-up plan, before we leap into the unknown.