Courage In Practice: Speaking Up Even When It's Scary
A values-based guide to showing up, speaking out, and staying aligned, even when it's hard.
Courage is the quiet moment when someone dares to speak—and everything begins to change.
Courage In Practice: Speaking Up Even When It's Scary
In real life, courage is quiet.
We often think of courage as dramatic, like a heroic gesture to save a person's life, taking a significant risk in leaving a nonfunctional relationship or making a bold leap into a new life or work direction.
But it's not these dramatic one-time events that define the courage that enables you to live out your values daily at home and work.
Courage is the one lone voice willing to speak up in a meeting.
It's the decision to say what you think, even when you're unsure how people will receive it.
It's calling out the elephant in the room when no one else is willing.
It's telling your boss or significant other you believe their decision is wrong.
Courage happens at the moment you choose alignment with your values over the comfort of staying silent.
Uncommon Personal Courage: Speak Up When It's Scary
Over the years, I've seen so many moments of courage that didn't look like bravery at first glance.
An employee who stood up in a meeting to say, "I think we're heading in the wrong direction."
A newer team member who voiced concern about a product no one else was questioning.
A manager who admitted, "We made a mistake, and here's how we'll make it right."
None of those moments came easily because courage rarely does, but they shaped decisions, steered companies, and strengthened relationships.
My late husband, Bill, was brilliant, driven, sharp-eyed, passionate, and intensely discerning about ideas.
It wasn't always easy to show courage around him, especially for employees who respected his intellect but feared being at odds with his vision.
Yet, the people who spoke up anyway, who risked disagreeing with him, often shaped the company's direction in meaningful ways.
Because even when he didn't think an idea would work, he didn't dismiss it outright. He listened.
He understood something essential: when a person has the courage to speak up, the leader's job isn't to squash the idea. Their job is to honor the courage.
Rather than rejecting the idea, he would lead the person through the steps of exploring their concept, not to prove them wrong but to help them arrive at their own conclusions.
Often, they ran with the idea until they realized it wouldn't work. But other times, the idea held up and changed everything.
According to Amy Casciotti, HR Vice President at TechSmith, sometimes, Bill allowed people to implement ideas he strongly suspected wouldn't work.
He did this not out of apathy, but because he understood something essential: people learn deeply from trying, failing, and finding their own way through.
He knew that some lessons stick best when they come through experience, not instruction. And because of that, people grew stronger, smarter, and humbler.
Amy said, “Bill also had a remarkable ability to create space for hard truths. More than once, he stopped a meeting and told everyone, ‘We need to listen to what this person is saying.’”
"Even when the comment was uncomfortable or unpopular, he gave it weight. He taught us that speaking up was worth it—and that leadership means honoring that courage.”
He challenged ideas, sometimes even ones he believed in, just to ensure they had been stress-tested from every angle. He modeled what it meant to think critically and speak openly.
And, maybe most powerfully, he admitted when he was wrong.
He'd name the mistake, share what he learned, and outline what needed to happen next.
That kind of example reverberated, and it made it safe for others to be honest about their own missteps, too, according to Amy.
That kind of leadership creates a culture of courage. It teaches people that speaking up is worth the risk.
Was it always perfectly executed? Of course not. Bill was brilliant—and human.
But courage was required on both sides:
The courage to speak.
And the courage to lead without crushing.
That's the kind of leadership that fosters courage.
For example, one memorable act of courage by a group of employees stays solidly in my memory.
They convinced Bill that a small program, developed in an employee's spare time, had the potential to move TechSmith from consulting into product sales.
That product, SnagIt, has led its industry for over 35 years now. All because a group of employees demonstrated courage, and Bill listened.
Courage Isn't Loud—But You'll Find It's Often Lonely
Courage isn't always rewarded in the moment. Sometimes, it disrupts consensus, and sometimes, it slows momentum. But that's the point.
Courage is a pause for conscience.
A friend once served on a jury where deliberations were swift. Most jurors declared the defendant guilty in under an hour.
The prosecutor's final argument was brilliant and persuasive and seemed to seal the case.
Except for one juror.
He wasn't a lawyer, and he wasn't the most experienced voice in the room. But he was willing to risk being disliked.
He said, "I'm not saying the person is innocent. But I don't think we've taken the time to review all the evidence. And that worries me. I think we owe them that."
That's what courage does. It slows events down just enough to make sure integrity is in the room.
The statement wasn't dramatic. It wasn't loud. But the juror expressed courage in a room to a group of united strangers.
This kind of courage slows decisions down so fairness can catch up.
I'm unsure where the final deliberation ended, but I am sure the defendant's story was much more fairly reviewed.
You'll See Courage in Action When People Are Brave
Years ago, I saw the same courage in a software development team.
Seven team members had aligned around a direction. But one developer asked them to reconsider.
"If we go this way and it fails, we'll have nothing left to build from. But if we take this different path, even if it still fails, we'll have useable source code for the next attempt."
He wasn't trying to be right. He was trying to be responsible for the team's overall success.
It took courage to stand alone. But the courage wasn't in winning the argument. It was in suggesting a different path when the other members were aligned.
When both efforts failed to produce what the team wanted, they had something to fall back on for their next attempt rather than rewriting from scratch.
The truth is, courage isn't always dramatic. Sometimes, it's a raised hand or a sentence beginning with "I'm not sure we're thinking this through."
Sometimes, it's the willingness to stand apart, not to be right but responsible.
Courage That Challenges the Elephant in the Room
An HR team I once worked with documented their hiring process.
Complaints had poured in from company managers about delays and inefficiencies in getting needed staff on board, so the team evaluated their hiring process.
The group, including managers, HR reps, and even the Senior VP, gathered to determine what needed fixing.
On review, slide after slide detailed processes, paperwork, and timelines—over 240.
Then, one person raised her hand.
She said, "I don't think the problem is the number of steps. The problem is how often we must stop and wait for the senior vice president's permission.
You could hear the people in the room holding their breath.
Her assessment was honest. It was accurate and brave. She was the lone person in the room willing to speak what the others were thinking.
Without her courage, the problem-solving could have ended right there, with everyone knowing the problem but no one courageous enough to speak the truth.
She didn't name the problem to shame anyone. She said it because it was true.
The process and the people deserve better than leaving their hours-long exercise with the obvious solution unspoken.
That's what courage makes possible: clarity that leads to change.
And it did. The senior VP removed himself entirely from the hiring process, except for providing feedback at several critical steps.
The Employee Stood Up For His Time With Courage
Years ago, one of our valuable employees refused to attend the leadership training I facilitated.
He believed it was a waste of time, a distraction from his "real work." And he told me so, directly, risking his standing with me to speak his truth.
He had no idea how I might react. It could have gone badly. But he said it anyway. That took courage.
I disagreed with him. But I respected his willingness to speak plainly. He didn't yet understand that the training wasn't just skill-building.
I told him the training was about culture. It focused on how we would lead, support each other, and live our values across the company.
I told him the training wasn't mandatory after all. His participation was his choice, and I also let him know I hoped he'd attend.
He ultimately came, always early, sitting right up front.
But what I remember most isn't his decision or his attendance. His courage earned my respect. He showed courage to question something and stand up for the truth as he saw it.
And I had the opportunity to show that TechSmith wouldn't punish courage.
That moment reinforced a powerful lesson: You could speak up at TechSmith.
And that, too, is courage in action.
That's the kind of culture where courage can breathe.
Why Ending May with Courage Fosters Action in June
May has been about grounding in values. We've explored presence, honesty, reflection, and trust.
However, courage is what allows those values to move from internal clarity to external action.
You can't practice integrity without courage.
You can't hold a difficult conversation without courage.
You can't navigate misalignment between your values and leadership decisions without courage.
And you can't remain rooted in what most matters when pressure invites you to bypass it without courage.
So May ends here, not in conclusion, but in readiness for putting our values to work.
Because June is where the difficult work begins: living your values when under duress.
Because when living your values gets hard—and it will—only courage will carry you through.
Thank you for reading and supporting ValuesCrafting. I treasure your presence in this community.