Moonshot: The role of courage in stretch goal pursuit – Job Talk

ABSTRACT In recent years, organizations have been facing increasingly volatile environments that require decision makers to operate under conditions of uncertainty and risk. Alongside these conditions, organizations – and societies at large – face ‘grand challenges', complex and uncertain problems such as climate change and financial instability, as well as opportunities such as rapid innovation and technological development. To thrive in such environments, decision makers must step away from familiar paths into the unknown and be bold – relying on strategic thinking, flexibility, a strong moral compass, and courage. Courage has fascinated humans for millennia; however, it has largely been conceptualized as moral in nature, and, as a result, its role in strategic leadership and decision-making in organizations has not been systematically and rigorously explored. I propose that courage is critical for leaders and decision makers in organizations, as a critical capacity for successfully navigating the complex organizational landscape of the 21st century. In my talk, I will present a paper examining the role of courage in leaders’ pursuit of stretch goals – extremely difficult, uncertain, and novel goals. Across methods and samples, my research demonstrates that leaders’ courage plays a role in goal pursuit, contributing to decision makers’ appropriate adoption of stretch goals, pointing to its potential importance for organizational success.