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The
Heart of
the People
You’re the Heart of the People — the one who remembers what leadership is really for.
While others chase approval or position, you lead from something deeper: care, connection, and an unwavering devotion to those you serve. You see the unseen, tend the unspoken, and offer what’s needed—before it’s even asked. Your leadership is felt in the small moments, where trust is built and lives are changed.
But sometimes, that boundless generosity becomes a mask. You give so much that you disappear. You avoid conflict to keep the peace, but in doing so, allow dysfunction to grow. You shape-shift to meet the needs of others and ignore your own—until burnout hits, and resentment follows. Beneath it all may live a quiet fear: that your worth depends on being needed.
Your next level of leadership is remembering this: your needs matter, too. Your voice, your boundaries, your truth. When you honor your own needs with the same love you give others, your leadership becomes whole—and your presence becomes a sanctuary, not a sacrifice.
Explore all the COURAGE types further below
Core Courage:
Compassion
Motto:
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” — Mother Teresa
Keywords:
Caring • Intuitive • Devoted
Gift to the Collective:
A tender strength that builds trust, heals disconnection, and reminds others they matter.
Shadow Tendency:
People-pleasing, emotional overextension, and conflict avoidance.
Limiting Beliefs:
If I’m not needed, I’m not valuable. If I speak up, I’ll hurt someone. Asking for my needs is selfish.
Legacy Figures:
Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandh
Growth Path:
Own your needs and communicate them with love. Set boundaries that protect your capacity and deepen your impact. Conflict doesn’t diminish connection—it can strengthen it when held with care. When you stop over-functioning for others and show up as your full self, your service becomes transformative.
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The Myth of Aligned Values
They sat across from each other in the strategy session, arms crossed, nodding politely—but not really hearing. The Possibility Prophet wanted to move. Fast. Propose bold policy. Break the mold. The Guardian of the People wanted to slow down. Anticipate risk. Secure buy-in. Protect the mission. By the end of the hour, both walked out frustrated—certain the other was the problem.
Our culture tells us this is misalignment. That someone failed the purity test. That we should cleanse the team and cut the apostate. That everyone in the party must agree. That we shouldn’t date someone from “the other side.” That difference is disloyalty.
This is bullshit—and it’s dangerous. Every government built on a single ideology has ended in collapse or catastrophe. Groupthink is a cancer, not a cure.
We don’t need shared values. We need shared purpose. And the courage to trust. To see each other as human. To question our own assumptions. To look inward before lashing outward. To hold creative tension instead of retreating into the safety of sameness.
Change that endures doesn’t come from purity—but from friction held in shared mission. Philadelphia, 1776—not Moscow, 1936. The visionary needs the pragmatist. The innovator needs the protector. When the Possibility Prophet welcomes resistance as refinement—not rejection—and the Guardian sees urgency not as recklessness, but as momentum to shape and test, something rare emerges: outcomes greater than the sum of their parts. That’s not compromise. That’s transformation.
How are you complicit in creating the conditions you claim not to want? How is it going? And are you brave enough to consider leadering differently?
Contemplative Questions:
How are you complicit in creating the very conditions you claim to resist? How’s it working? And are you brave enough to lead differently?
Join The Courage Lab & get instant access to:
→ Monthly Lab Sessions
→ Personal Arête Framework
→ Community Voxer Thread
→ Monthly Peer Support Call
→ Practical Tools & Practices
From city halls to global nonprofits, we’ve supported over 1,000 changemakers in becoming better leaders by becoming better humans. We don’t fix broken systems—we train the leaders who do.
Join The Courage Lab & get instant access to:
→ Monthly Lab Sessions
→ Personal Arête Framework
→ Community Voxer Thread
→ Monthly Peer Support Call
→ Practical Tools & Practices
