Originally published January 2022. Updated June 2026.
This month, we’ve been exploring how we can be bolder. Rather than showing you photos of people climbing mountains and encouraging you to “think big” or some other such vague nonsense, we’ve tried to give you insights into what bold leadership really means and some ways you can ask bolder questions in sales.
This week, we wanted to share more of what we’ve found in our research on boldness. These concepts keep coming up as the underpinnings of what bold leaders today need to provide and promote to be effective and foster boldness in their teams.
B = BALANCE
One of the critical understandings of effective bold leadership is the idea that boldness cannot stand on its own. Notice that I said effective bold leadership. That’s what we’re talking about. From here on out, when I talk about boldness, assume I’m referring specifically to effective bold leadership.
This kind of leadership can’t exist without a balance between two critical traits—confidence and humility. Confidence without humility isn’t bold. It’s brash and abrasive. Humility without confidence isn’t bold, either. Someone who is all humility might be a nice person and even an effective employee, but they aren’t a leader.
In the research for his book Good to Great, Jim Collins found that the top leaders blended a high level of personal humility with an intense professional will. Humility, it turns out, is a predictor of effective leadership.
Similarly, reporting by Forbes found that humble leaders led teams that were more motivated, loyal, and worked harder. Humility has been shown to increase employee engagement. Furthermore, studies show that the more leaders underrate their own skills, the more effective they are.
O = OPENNESS
The second critical ingredient to bold leadership is openness. Leaders who are open share information about themselves and show genuine interest in learning about their employees. They are receptive to learning from others, can discuss difficult topics, and are authentic in who they are.
Part of being open is also being vulnerable. Sharing information about yourself means sharing your emotions. It is this openness and vulnerability displayed by a leader that creates psychological safety for employees. A study in Frontiers in Psychology found that when managers were willing to admit to and learn from mistakes, employees were more engaged with their work, willing to go the extra mile, were more creative, and were more dedicated.
While openness and vulnerability have been proven to motivate employees, they aren’t commonly found in most managers. Of the employees surveyed, 39% reported that their manager often or always showed openness. Only 24% of respondents indicated that their managers showed vulnerability. The psychological safety that comes from open, empathetic leaders allows their employees to share ideas and try new strategies without the fear of making mistakes.
L = LEVITY
Having a sense of humor doesn’t just make you more pleasant to work with or for—it makes you a stronger leader. Research shows that leaders with any sense of humor at all are seen as 27% more motivating and admired than those with none. Employees of these individuals are also more engaged and more creative.
You can’t be bold if you have no sense of humor. Part of being humble is being able to laugh at yourself. Shared laughter accelerates feelings of closeness and trust between individuals, so injecting some levity into your work will help foster group openness and psychological safety.
Laughter at work has been shown to relieve stress and boredom, increase engagement and overall well-being, and promote creativity and collaboration. Perhaps more surprising is that more laughter also leads to higher analytic precision and productivity among workers.
Laughter alters our brain chemistry, enhancing relationships and improving how we feel. Less cortisol is produced, which leads to a feeling of calmness. At the same time, more endorphins and oxytocin are released. According to Harvard Business Review, “It’s like meditating, exercising, and having sex at the same time. Plus, it’s HR-approved.” C’mon, anything that has led the Harvard Business Review to make a sex joke must be important.
D = DARING
Balance, openness, and levity may not have been the components that you first associated with bold leadership, but being daring likely was. At its core, boldness is really about daring to do something different, thinking outside the box, and challenging the status quo. The first three ingredients of bold leadership are what make it possible not only for leaders to be daring but also for them to encourage their teams to be daring as well.
In Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, she explains that daring leaders have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation. Being daring isn’t easy or comfortable, and neither is being bold. As we wrote in our first boldness blog, someone who is bold does not let fear get in the way of:
- Trying something new.
- Asking difficult, but necessary questions.
- Being honest with others.
- Admitting when they need help.
- Admitting when they are wrong.
- Accepting feedback and criticism from others.
- Leaving their comfort zone.
- Providing others with the opportunity to leave their comfort zone.
- Speaking up when nobody else does.
- Asking for what they want from others.
Many leaders say that they want their employees to take chances and challenge the way things have always been done, but this can’t happen unless team members feel safe, know their ideas are valued and will be listened to, and have developed trust in their leader, their team, and their organization.
Forbes recently reported that 40% of employees lack the confidence to share their ideas for fear of being marginalized. This statistic tells us that bold leadership is needed in more organizations. Are you up to the task? We fully expect you to be dangling off the side of a mountain any day now.
Interested in Maestro workshops for your team. Reach out to us at mastery@maestrogroup.co to learn more.