Keys to Leadership Success: Faith, Hope, and Courage

Have faith in your co-workers, they give you hope. Always have the courage to execute. My epiphany on the keys to my career success as a leader.

9 min readMar 24, 2017

I stayed at, or left, companies because of the faith I had in what I couldn’t control. When my faith was challenged, waning, or lost, it was hope that kept me from giving up and leaving. The source of that hope was almost always in people that had the courage to be the catalyst for change. They were the ones who led the way and tried to show us that something better was possible.

Throughout my career I didn’t consider myself “better” than my co-workers. I was certainly never the smartest person in the room. If I wasn’t better or smarter, what was the key to my career success? I found out one day in a deli. I came to realize that the decisions in my career, and my success, were based on faith in people, hope, and most importantly, courage. Courage is the source of faith and hope.

I frequently chat with the owner of a local deli about many different topics while waiting for my order. As a technical professional who has always worked in NYC, I value his different perspective on things. He was not born here and I admire his courage to move his family halfway around the world. To put his faith in our country, hoping for the opportunity for something better.

On this particular day our discussion was about the state of the government and the new president. The owner speculated that the U.S. is becoming just like other countries. We vote along party lines. Obstructionism is a political strategy. We are upset about fake news and alternative facts. Fake news replaces trust with skepticism. It challenges our faith in people. What he said next really intrigued me.

People don’t realize that faith and hope are different.

There was a depth to that statement that I couldn’t grasp at first. It wasn’t about political or religious views. It wasn’t a polarizing statement. It was about the difference between two very powerful words that carry so much meaning in people’s lives. I believe the decisions he made in his life are based on faith, hope, and courage.

Faith, Hope and Courage are different, but all three are required in order to truly succeed.

Faith = Inspiration

Faith is your inspiration. A strong faith in your company will give you hope, and inspire you. Your own success is dependent on others that you can’t control. The definition of faith is to put your trust and confidence in someone or something else. In a career, what you put your faith in is people. You can’t directly control the success or failure of your company, only contribute to it. You must have faith that others are contributing just as much as you are. You have to have faith in the leaders. Faith that they are guiding you, and the company, on the right path. You put your faith in them because they give you hope.

Faith
1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something
2. belief that is not based on proof

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

Hope = Motivation

Hope is your motivation. It’s an expectation and desire for certain things to happen. This is why you learn new things, why you practice, why you go to the gym, why you push yourself. Hope is about embracing uncertainty, trying when there are no guarantees. There is an expectation that what is being done will have an impact, it will make something happen. In order for there to be hope, there has to be an action taking place.

Hope
1. a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen
2. a feeling of trust

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
— Albert Einstein

Courage = Execution

If faith inspires you and hope motivates you, then courage lets you execute. Companies of all sizes need to constantly change and evolve. You need to do the same in your career. The riskiest time to introduce change is when everything is going well. Yet, that is when you are most able to handle change, to try a new venture, to take on risk. It takes courage to constantly be taking action.

Courage
1. mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, uncertainty, or difficulty

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
— Muhammad Ali

Success is about what you do next…

Startups are a constant struggle of working through one challenge after another. Every success brings another set of challenges. It’s relentless. It requires faith, hope, courage, and a bit of patience and perseverance. People put their faith in the founder. They take a leap of faith when they join an early-stage startup. The founder gives them hope. He/she has the courage to lead the way when there are no guarantees.

As companies grow and people advance through their career, it’s easy to become complacent. To stop and accept the success that has been earned, and well deserved. When success has been “achieved” is exactly when you can, and should, push for the next level. It takes courage to be the one to say “We can do better!”, especially when things are going well.

Success, greatness, and happiness are pursuits, not achievements.

Andrew Grove of Intel had a philosophy that only the paranoid survive. Companies that transition in order to stay ahead are the ones most likely to prevail. If you always believe the competition is right behind you (paranoid), you will always be pushing. The most well regarded and successful companies are the ones who are always in transition. Apple, a computer company, is now in the phone business. Google, a search company, makes self driving cars. Amazon, a shopping site, is a leader in cloud computing. Elon Musk started with city guide software (Zip2) and now is making rocket ships! They have the courage to constantly change and evolve, to put their bottom line at risk. They are focused on the next thing, not what they achieved. These are the courageous companies, and people, that we have faith in.

Being a Catalyst

I have experienced quite a bit of change in my career, having worked full time for more than 10 companies and consulted at over a dozen. When I lost faith in a company, business model, leadership, or my boss; I would try to change things. This meant having the courage to speak up, step up, and be the catalyst for change.

Catalyst
1. a person or thing that precipitates an event

The ordinary hero hiding in each of us is often the most powerful catalyst for change.
— Tate Taylor

Stepping Up and Earning Trust

The first startup I was at, Shutterstock, experienced almost a doubling of employees every year for 5 years. I was managing the new business teams, launching or relaunching 6 web properties in 5 years. These were the startups within the startup. We understood, and mostly embraced the Satir Change Model in a business context. Constant change and experimentation was a requirement. We embraced the chaos required to level up.

The original core product was the big revenue generator. Over time they shifted from being risk aware to risk averse. They stopped taking big swings that are a requirement to maintain a high percentage rate of growth. Core revenue was still growing, but at a declining rate. They stopped being courageous.

The opposite of success isn’t failure, it’s the lack of success. You learn from your failures, not your lack of success.

I wanted the core teams to learn from the successes and failures of the new business teams. They could learn from the risks we took. My attempts to advise and share our wisdom were largely ignored. While I had the courage to speak up, I had yet to earn their trust and respect. Without trust, they had no reason to put their faith in me, or to look to me for hope. Trust is required for both faith and hope.

I made a decision to step up and start volunteering for almost anything, regardless of my qualifications and comfort level. If no one else volunteered, I would, no matter the task or project. I was the backup for running various department meetings. I managed social events (I was very shy growing up). I would interview candidates at a moments notice. I took the lead on projects that were far outside my comfort zone and expertise.

My teams were succeeding, I had no need to take on more. Just when I was succeeding, I was setting myself up for potential failure. I was taking on risk when I didn’t need to. Yet, this was the time I was best prepared and able to take on risk, to possibly fail. This was the most successful time of my career.

My ability to influence and facilitate change outside my teams increased steadily. People who I didn’t work with directly would come to me for advice. We worked together to put the company on a better trajectory, to give everyone hope.

Years later a core developer, whom I hold in high regard, shared his impression of me. Initially he thought of me as “just a PHP developer” who wouldn’t have much impact at the company. Eventually he considered me to be one of the pillars of the company. All because I had the courage to step up.

The Opposite of Success

The next startup I was at was not succeeding, though it wasn’t failing either. Like many startups do, they were running out of money. The trajectory we were on didn’t seem to be the path to success. I had lost faith in leadership and the direction we were heading. I still had faith in our business model and my teams. There was hope.

The current status quo was giving us small “victories”. These small victories were giving us false hope. They were too small to achieve real success. It was our own version of “fake news”. Morale was declining and frustration increasing. People were losing faith. They needed something to give them hope.

Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
— Harry S. Truman

A few of us set out to change how we were planning and building things, how we were structured, how we communicated. We asked questions, challenged ideas, pressed for more information, proposed changes, created roadmaps and restructured teams. It was a lot to ask all at once. To get through the chaos of change would require faith, hope and someone with the courage to be the catalyst. This was the time to quit, to give up, to leave.

Over the course of a few months, others put their faith in the few of us that were facilitating change. We worked long hours and over the weekends. Not because it was required, but because we had hope. We believed we were correcting our trajectory so the company could reach it’s full potential. We started to show that we could move faster and deliver a higher quality product. We started turning the ship around.

We did not succeed in accomplishing what we set out to do. There was a restructuring and some of us were let go. We failed, but we didn’t fail to have an impact. We all believe we are better for the courageous experience. Many of the things we started are still in place, and we believe the company has higher potential now. Those still there continue to find hope in the new status quo.

Inspiration, Motivation, Execution

Remember that guy from the deli? He is considering getting involved in politics. Not in our government, in the government of his birth country. Politics is something he has few qualifications for, and is far outside his comfort zone. Why not go back and be the bearer of hope for others there? I admire his courage. It’s people like him that make a country great, who gives us hope. I have faith that he can become a pillar of society if he so chooses. I hope he chooses to stay and help us achieve a new status quo.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
— T.S. Eliot

People do not put their faith in the bystanders, the watchers, the complacent. They put their faith in the courageous, the catalysts, those who embrace change to constantly evolve and grow. In return, the courageous are the ones who give others hope. The courageous are the ones who have the highest potential to succeed. That day at the deli, I realized this was the secret to my success. I was never the best or smartest person in the room, just the most courageous.

Successful careers are based on inspiration, motivation and execution. Faith, Hope, and Courage. Have faith in what inspires you, let hope motivate you, and always have the courage to be executing.