SHRM26 Debrief · Leadership & Development · #2130

Leading with Bravery in the Age of Transformation: How Courage Shapes the Future of Work

with Jill Schulman

▶ Watch on the SHRM portal ~79 min, distilled

braverycouragepsychological safety

"Fear is inevitable, our reaction to fear, our hesitation, is optional, and bravery is trainable."

What it was about

Bravery is not the absence of fear but voluntary action in the presence of fear toward a worthwhile goal. Since stress and uncertainty, including from AI, never go to zero, organizations must teach people to build the capacity to move forward despite fear, not just try to eliminate it.

By the numbers

60% to 80% of confidence comes from taking a brave step

Albert Bandura's self-efficacy research on the primary driver of confidence

twice as motivated to avoid risk than to move toward something with equal gain

Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize-winning research on human decision-making and risk aversion

over 2,000 adults followed in a study on experiential avoidance

study finding that avoiding feared things led to development and sustainment of anxiety and depression

Key notes

Bravery is a trainable, practicable skill, not a fixed personality trait, so organizations can teach it like any other capability.
Confidence is built through taking action first, not by waiting to feel confident before acting — per Bandura's research, 60-80% of confidence comes from taking a brave step.
Shrink a feared goal into a step that is 'stupidly doable' but still hard enough to count, schedule it like a meeting, and don't press snooze on the commitment.

The contrarian takePsychological safety alone is insufficient. Well-intentioned efforts to remove discomfort or excuse people from hard things, at work or at home, can backfire by signaling incapability and weakening resilience over time. Per Amy Edmondson, the goal of psychological safety isn't safety itself but candor, which requires a second, less-discussed lever: teaching people to act despite fear.

Take this back Monday

Do this for your team

Pick one recurring 'let's wait and see' stall on your team and schedule a small, stupidly-doable brave step for it this week.

Say this in your next leadership meeting

Confidence comes from action, not before it — so we're building bravery as a trainable skill, not just adding more psychological safety.

Watch out for

Removing challenges or discomfort for employees (or children) out of compassion, which implicitly signals 'you can't handle this' and makes people weaker over time.
Trying to reduce fear and uncertainty to zero and waiting for employees to feel 100% comfortable before expecting performance — that point never arrives.
Only implementing psychological safety training without also teaching people how to actually take brave action, leaving one of the two necessary levers unused.

Fun fact · Jill Schulman

Jill Schulman is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who has delivered over 1,500 keynotes on bravery, reaching more than 40,000 professionals worldwide.

If this landed, see these

↳ Go deeperGrappling with Gremlins: Three Steps to Managing Imposter SyndromeGives the 'act despite fear' idea a concrete three-step process for the inner critic.⇄ The counterpointLeadership Effectiveness That Delivers Results: Eight Organizational DimensionsReframes bravery gaps as symptoms of systemic conditions, not a personal skill to train.✦ The unexpected oneFrom Disruption to Opportunity: Building Resilience in Your Workplace CultureSame resilience payoff, built through empathy and listening instead of scheduled brave steps.