By: Srinath Sridharan
Courage is a word we use with restraint, almost as though it belongs only to the pages of history or to the actions of legends. We invoke it when we think of soldiers who gave their lives in battle, reformers who defied empires, or whistleblowers who stood alone against towering institutions.
The very act of speaking the word distances it from our own lives, placing it somewhere far above the ordinary routines of our days.
Yet in his new book, How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage, Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati dismantles this reverence. Courage, he reminds us, is instead, a daily practice, an art that can be cultivated and strengthened, a discipline to which each of us can commit.
A Teachable Discipline
Can courage be learned, or is it the preserve of a chosen few? Gulati argues persuasively that boldness is not an accident of temperament but a discipline that can be built with intent. Drawing on history, psychology and lived experiences, he offers a framework that traces how individuals and institutions alike can nurture courage as a renewable resource.
For individuals, it is the work of coping with uncertainty, building confidence, committing to purpose, forging connections, finding meaning amid chaos and learning the stillness of calm.
For organisations, it is about creating cultures that reward honesty and loyalty, about leaders whose charisma inspires rather than dominates, and about shared values that make collective boldness possible.
Gulati, with a career spent studying leadership and organisations, writes with both rigour and humaneness. He insists on a definition of courage that is neither reckless nor romantic: courage is not the absence of fear, but the decision to act in spite of it. Fear, he tells us, is a constant.
What differentiates those who move forward from those who remain paralysed is not temperament or accident of birth, but the set of habits and conditions that allows one to act with meaning even when the heart trembles.
Facing Modern Turbulence
This reframing is especially powerful in our present moment. We inhabit a world riddled with turbulence—political uncertainty, economic flux, technological disruption, environmental stress, amongst others.
Each of these demands a reservoir of courage, not just from leaders in positions of power but from citizens, employees, and communities. The courage required may lie in speaking truth to authority within a company, in resisting conformity when groupthink prevails, in choosing ethical clarity over expedience when the incentives of markets push otherwise.
To move from the abstract to the practical, Gulati proposes a framework of nine dimensions—the ‘9 Cs’—through which courage can be cultivated. These range from the inward (coping, confidence, calm, comprehension, commitment) to the outward (connection, clan, charisma, culture).
The idea is not to overwhelm but to reveal how courage is woven from many strands. Boldness, he argues, emerges not only from internal strength but from the environments and communities that enable it.
As he writes with warmth, “What we don’t often recognize is that heroes seldom act alone. Behind every hero we usually find other, less visible supporters.” This is a point very mirror-like for each of us who gobble credit for our supposed achievements.
The book’s greatest strength lies in its countless stories, those that would appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, irrespective of their background, age or life situation.
Gulati brings courage alive through scenes of extremity and of ordinariness alike—engineers containing a nuclear reactor on the brink of meltdown, soldiers at the edge of battle, astronauts facing the unknown, doctors and nurses holding the line in a pandemic, a lone employee daring to expose wrongdoing.
One of the most affecting passages recalls his own mother, who refused to be cowed when pressured and threatened to sell a piece of family land. Such stories give the book both intimacy and breadth.
Unlike much of the leadership literature, Gulati’s prose is free of jargon and accessible without being simplistic. He writes as a scholar with mastery of his subject, but also like a mentor determined to speak plainly.
Readers encounter research and behavioural science, but also reflective prompts and practical suggestions—ways to exercise what he calls the ‘courage muscle’ through repeated, intentional practice. The book is, therefore, both a reflection and a manual—it asks us to think deeply about courage, but also to try, to test, to practise in our own contexts.
Some may find the framework of nine categories too expansive, risking the impression of over-classification. Gula-ti does not claim universality; he offers instead a set of lenses. It is up to us to bring them to bear on our own dilemmas.
The Character Hinge
Gulati reminds us that without courage, all other virtues falter. Integrity, innovation, justice—all depend upon the willingness to act when easier choices beckon. Courage, he suggests, is the hinge on which character turns. This insistence resonates sharply in India today.
As our economy expands, as our institutions evolve, as companies face the scrutiny of shareholders and societies alike, the need for courage becomes more pressing. Not the courage of spectacle or slogans, but the everyday boldness to question, to dissent, to act in ways that privilege integrity over expedience.
For business readers in particular, the book offers a necessary corrective. Boldness in corporate life is too often mistaken for high-stakes risk-taking or aggressive expansion. In the corporate and financial world, courage is often mistaken for bold bets or aggressive expansion.
Yet as markets, technologies, and societies shift with disorienting speed, the courage that truly matters may be quieter—the courage to admit uncertainty rather than feign omniscience.
Gulati argues for a subtler, sturdier form of courage—the willingness to prioritise long-term over short-term, to say no when markets reward saying yes, to build cultures where truth can be spoken without fear. This, he suggests, is the kind of courage that creates resilient institutions and earns enduring trust.
In the end, How to Be Bold is less about heroics and more about humanity. It insists that courage is the responsibility of each of us. The book nudges us to reconsider the fears that keep us silent, and to take even one step forward, however tentative, in defiance of them.
This is a book to read, to gift, to return to, and to keep close. Few works manage to combine insight with such sincerity. As I turned its final pages, I couldn’t help thinking, this is one of those books an author like me wishes they had written.
(Srinath Sridharan is author, corporate adviser & independent director on corporate boards.)
