Sometimes it takes courage to speak up at work and let the management know our concerns.

My guest for this podcast is professor Jim Detert and he recently released a new book entitled “Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work“.  Jim is a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business Administration and has spent decades researching workplace courage, and in his new book shares his insights.  What Jim has discovered is that overcoming fear can be done with practice, that taking smaller risks can help us build up to bigger ones, and that our colleagues notice our actions more than we think.

In Choosing Courage, he shares how to increase the chance of accomplishing something positive when acting with courage at work, while decreasing negative personal consequences, including 1) creating right conditions 2) managing the message 3) managing emotions 4) taking actions after the act.

If you need to have that difficult conversation with your employer, this book will provide you with guidance and hopefully spark your courage to have that challenging conversation.  If you want to learn more about Jim Detert and his new book please click here to be directed to his website.  There you can also download the first chapter of the book at no cost and he also provides a downloadable worksheet entitled “Personal Workplace Courage Ladder”

I hope you enjoy this interview and that you learn what you need to do when challenged by your employer’s actions.