Courage Is a Leadership Strategy: Lessons from Special Forces & The More Effect
A Business @ the Speed of AI Podcast Episode on Courage with Retired Special Forces Colonel & Contributor Perry Rearick
In business, we often treat courage like a nice-to-have add‑on to leadership—useful in a crisis, but optional the rest of the time. It isn’t. Courage is a leadership strategy. Without it, your values, your culture, and your strategy never fully make it off the slide deck and into daily behavior.
A lesson I’ve taken from conversations with Special Forces veteran Perry Rerick is that courage rarely looks like the movie version. Perry tells the story of a Medal of Honor recipient who, when asked about courage, didn’t talk about battlefield heroics. Instead, he talked about the quiet courage to tell the truth on a readiness report—refusing to make the numbers look better than reality, despite pressure from above.
That’s the real arena of leadership: the unseen moments where you decide whether to protect your image or protect your integrity.
In The More Effect, I define courage as “the strength to be yourself.” It’s less about bold stunts and more about three specific disciplines:
- Emotional courage: staying grounded when the room gets hot—responding instead of reacting.
- Moral courage: saying the hard thing that needs to be said, even when it risks your popularity, role, or short‑term comfort.
- Strategic courage: breaking harmful legacy behaviors, whether that’s how you price, how you treat people on the way out, or how you confront bias in your systems.
If you want to operationalize courage as a strategy, start small and daily. Ask yourself at the end of each day:
- Where did I hesitate today?
- What truth did I avoid?
- What would the courageous version of me have done?
- What did choosing comfort over courage cost my team?
You can’t outsource courage and you can’t automate it. But you can practice it. And over time, those quiet, consistent acts of courage become your culture—and your competitive advantage.
You can find the book on Amazon and learn more here: www.TheMoreEffectBook.com
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About Jeremy
Jeremy Victor is humble, hard working and the author of The MORE Effect. It is the culmination of his life’s work. With one decade as a kid, and three decades in Corporate America, capable of writing, designing, building, and caring, he’s driven to help others become more. No matter the role, no matter the moment, service to others, achieving desired outcomes, and being a good person matter most to him.
He’s the voice behind the Business at the Speed of AI podcast and newsletter, where he explores the intersection of leadership, modernization, and the AI-first always-on economy. His work is guided by a simple belief: that operational excellence and human connection aren’t trade-offs—they’re the future.
His mission: help people—and the systems they work in—Become More.
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