What Gives a Brave Leader the Guts to Lead?

This is the question our founder, Margareta Barchan, set out to answer back in 2015. Instead of looking into the minds and hearts of leaders — subjects that have been written about a lot — she asked herself:

“What about guts? How do some people find the courage to stand up for their values and challenge the status quo, even when it sometimes comes with tremendous risk?”

Since then, she has conducted in-depth interviews with around 50 of the world’s bravest leaders, working in fields like business, politics, academia, and non-profit.

Margareta teamed up with experienced executive coach Jeanne Westervelt Rice, who helped to turn the leaders’ insights into exercises that help each of us take action in our own lives.

Their partnership resulted in the book Brave Leaders: Finding the Guts to Make Meaningful & Lasting Change. More about that below — but first, we’d like to share the answer to Margareta’s question.

This Is What We Found:

The Four Universal Traits of Brave Leaders™

We realized that each of the brave leaders we interviewed possessed the four traits below. Together, they are a good indication of a person’s potential to create meaningful change.

  • Perseverance: Brave Leaders are fully committed to their mission, despite challenges and setbacks. They accept that they may not see results of their efforts in their lifetime.

  • Altruism: Brave Leaders make the cause they fight for more important than themselves.

  • Humility: Brave Leaders are open to other people’s ideas and perspectives, and thoughtfully consider them before making a decision.

  • Composure: Brave Leaders are ready to take risks, thanks in part to their ability to identify and manage their fears.

We invite you to take our free, 5-minute Gut Check to see where you stand on each of these four traits. Or keep reading to learn more about them below!

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The Four Universal Traits of Brave Leaders

A collection of blog posts about The Four Universal Traits, what they mean, and how you can cultivate and apply them in your own life. For more knowledge, interviews, and insights, check out our blog section.

Brave Leaders: The Book

Brave Leaders: Finding the Guts to Make Meaningful & Lasting Change is a collection of interviews with some of the world’s bravest leaders. In the book, you can find the extraordinary stories of ordinary people, from a grassroots activist and defender of the Amazon rainforest, to people promoting ethical values in big pharma and cosmetics.

Brave Leaders explores what drives these people to risk their reputation, career, and sometimes safety, to stand up for their values and bring about meaningful change. Each of their stories is complemented by specific exercises, to help you reflect on what their story means to you and how you can take action in your own life.

Brave Leaders is available on Amazon, both in paperback and Kindle.

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The Brave Leaders Team

We are a team of four professionals from different corners of the world, who connected over a shared mission to inspire courage and meaningful change. Learn more about our personal motivations in this blog post, where we each explain what brought us to work on The Brave Leaders Project.

 
Margareta Barchan

MARGARETA BARCHAN
Founder & Lead Interviewer

Margareta is an entrepreneur and business adviser who was named Sweden’s Businesswoman of the Year in 1997. She is an expert at helping organizations create and implement strategies that support a sustainable future.

Margareta is a co-founder of The Change Leaders, and co-founder and former president and CEO of Celemi International. She is also a former lecturer of leadership and sustainability at several academic institutions in Europe, including Business School Lausanne. Margareta holds an MSc from HEC Paris and is a graduate from the University of Geneva, Harvard Business School’s AMP, and Oxford University.

Jeanne Rice

JEANNE WESTERVELT RICE
Partner & Practice Leader, Coaching for Courage

Jeanne is an experienced coach, keynote speaker, and workshop facilitator, with a background in corporate communication and broadcast journalism.

Jeanne has helped thousands of professionals from the world’s largest companies and top universities create powerful messages, speak with confidence, and inspire others to action to improve business outcomes. She holds a master’s degree in business journalism from Northwestern University and is a certified communication specialist. In 2017, Jeanne was named a Top 25 Brand Builder by Leading Women Entrepreneurs of New Jersey.

Jessica Newfield

JESSICA NEWFIELD
Collaborator & Content Contributor

Jessica is a Co-Founder of NextGen Collective and Global Community Builder for WWF’s Innovation Lab, Panda Labs. A values-driven systems thinker, she thrives off supporting innovators and entrepreneurs in cultivating the conditions for achieving agency and skills for the 21st century.

With background in social innovation, community management, impact assessment, and leadership development, Jessica has worked In 18+ countries with small to large-scale nonprofits, social businesses, management consulting firms, and SaaS and hardware startups, to support collective impact projects across the globe.
Menno Moffitt de Block

MENNO MOFFITT DE BLOCK
Web Designer & Content Contributor

Menno is a freelance writer and storytelling strategist with a passion for social enterprise and grassroots leadership. He combines his background as an author, social enterprise consultant, and salesperson to help organizations tell their story with compelling content.

Menno has a combined master’s degree in International Management – CEMS from the Rotterdam School of Management and HEC Paris, and has lived and worked in The Netherlands, France, Ireland, Cambodia, and the US.

Brave Leaders in Your Organization

Through our work, we have come to understand the power of courage and resilience within organizations. With our dedicated workshops, we help companies cultivate these qualities within their leadership and workforce.

Building on the powerful examples and insights from our book, our workshops will help grow your team’s resilience and readiness for change.

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