The old saying goes: “The optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.” I am neither a blind optimist nor a down-in-the-dumps pessimist. I’m a realist, and I believe we live in a most uncertain and challenging world—a world that makes Courage more critical today than ever before.
With disruptive forces like political instability, climate change, and AI increasing in intensity, our individual and collective futures seem more chaotic and less predictable than ever. Just in the last decade, we have seen an unprecedented pandemic, economic volatility swinging from booming markets to the verge of recession, rising tensions between employees and corporations, and even between citizens and their governments. In this year alone, we’ve reached a new fever pitch. Since March 2025, almost 90 percent of corporate earnings calls have featured discussion of uncertainty, up from just 38 percent in the year’s first quarter. As one observer put it, “uncertainty is the game in town,” while another noted that people today are “maximally confused.” In the decade ahead, I anticipate that this dynamic will only intensify as Generative AI becomes integrated into our lives at work and at home, and climate change continues to affect global temperatures and weather patterns. Our world is changing at an accelerated pace, making it difficult to anticipate what shape things will take.
In the face of political, economic, and technological uncertainty, leaders are often reluctant to take bold action. Some freeze, too overwhelmed to make decisions. Many hunker down and retrench, hoping to wait out the chaos. However, research shows that the old adage is true: fortune favors the brave, not the cautious. This is what colleagues Nitin Nohria and Franz Wohlgezogen and I found more than a decade ago, when, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, we examined how 4,700 public companies had navigated three previous recessions. We discovered that about 9% were able to emerge from each downturn in stronger shape than before, not because they had cut costs (though they did) but because they had at the same time also taken courageous, calculated risks to invest in growth.
Given today’s landscape of profound and intensifying uncertainty, I fundamentally believe that courage matters today more than ever. That is precisely why I wrote my new book, How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage, launching September 30th, and why I am dedicating Season 2 of this newsletter to this topic. The central premise is that courage is not limited to a chosen few; all of us can find ways to cultivate and tap into our inner strength to take bold action in the face of uncertainty.
Courage has been viewed as a foundational virtue across cultures for millennia. Aristotle called it “the mother of all virtues.” C.S. Lewis wrote that courage is “the form of every virtue at the testing point,” and Maya Angelou stated, “Courage is the most important of the virtues, because without it, no other virtue can be practiced consistently.”
So why did these thinkers find courage so important? Because it gives us the strength to act in accordance with our values and to guide organizations towards a deeper purpose—especially when facing adversity, espousing unpopular opinions, or enduring intense scrutiny. Consider Malala Yousafzai’s commitment to girls’ education or Frances Haugen’s resolve in exposing Facebook’s internal practices. Both were regular people until the call for courage became impossible to ignore. Or, consider how former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi boldly pivoted the global food giant, facing down often withering criticism to build a robust portfolio of healthier products alongside its classic stable of popular snacks and sodas.
When we choose to act with courage, the transformation begins within us. We find the fortitude to make difficult choices and push forward in the face of uncertainty. But this is where the real impact starts, because courage is contagious. In doing so, we not only realize our own aspirations but also inspire those around us to do more than they thought possible. A leader’s conviction can inspire an entire organization to pursue a more meaningful purpose. This shared resolve is what empowers us to make a tangible difference—to speak up for the silenced, to challenge the status quo, and to build more resilient communities and organizations. By behaving boldly, we may not create the best of all possible worlds, but we can create one where we can reasonably expect the best from one another
In a world of increasingly disruptive forces, where existing systems will inevitably face unprecedented pressures and the future is anyone’s guess, the challenges ahead must be met with a veritable army of Malala’s, Frances’s, and Indra’s. This is precisely why building our capacity for courage is more important than ever. The ability to act in accordance with our values, and to be decisive in the face of challenging circumstances is not just a virtue—it is the essential skill for navigating the uncertainty that lies ahead.
