When people think of courage, leadership is not often associated with it. I was one of those people who did not make the connection between courage and leadership, but after reading this last part of the book, I learned that you need courage to be a good leader. Kouzes and Posner state it perfectly, "Leaving a legacy is all about making a difference. We can only make a difference when we take stands. Every one of us is capable of taking stands on things that matter. That's what it really means to live a courageous life." (132). Being courageous or having courage does not mean that we all perform these grand heroic acts, instead we prefer the smaller acts that come onto our paths of life. Leadership is all about are work that often involves suffering on the part of the leader. If a person wants to change anything they need to have some courage because without it they may not be able to handle the resistance that they encounter. Not every person in our organizations are going to agree with what we have to say, but we need to be willing to stand our ground and fight for what we believe in much like Rosa Parks did in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat. Courage is a true act of leadership and anyone of us is capable of it. To be a good leader we need to be willing to take a stand when our values are challenged or offended. Courage is also very important when it comes to failure. We can't be afraid to fail because it is these failures that we learn from on how to do better or be better. Personally when I joined Delta Phi Epsilon, I was very afraid that we might fail at recruiting for it when there were only 15 of us after the original bid day in September 2010. I thought this because being on a campus were there are already two deeply rooted sororities, that no one would want to join the new one. Ultimately with the help of nationals and the support from the Greek community on campus we were able to recruit double the number of people from the original bid day. Needless say I was wrong. Yes, there have been a few bumps along the road, but it is because of these bumps we have learned how to become a better organization and better individuals within an organization. My favorite quote about courage does not come from this book, it is actually from a movie (A Cinderella Story). "Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game". This quote basically sums up what I got from this last part of the book. Don't be afraid to fail. Failure is part of life and if you are afraid to fail then you will miss out on so much in life.
