A leader is essentially engaged in decision-making. He therefore needs lots of courage, for the outcome of a decision could go either way and a failure is often orphaned, while everyone around rushes to father its opposite.

The year 2007 - Ratan Tata, then the 69-year-old CEO of Tata Sons Ltd. — the overseeing emperor of the Tata group of companies, numbering around 96 that are engaged in making salt to software to steel to beverages to whatnot — attracted a lot of media glare. The reason is well known - he has overseen the acquisition of Anglo-Dutch Steel Producer — Corus — a company which is almost three times bigger than Tata Steel, for US$ 12.1 bn and made Tata Steel the world’s 5th largest steel maker. This daredevil act of Ratan Tata made the industry pundits drop their jaws: “Ye Gods, it doth amaze … / A man of such a feeble temper should / So get the start of the majestic world, / And bear the palm alone.”

Now the question is, what is it that made Tatas—an otherwise sleeping elephant—bid for a company that is many times bigger than itself and ultimately win the four-month-old battle pitted against the CSN? The answer on everybody’s lips was: Ratan Tata—“Man of steel”—and his “courage”. Some said, it was the “steelier nerves” of the Bombay House that finally outsmarted the resource-rich Brazilian challenger. But Ratan Tata has a different answer to offer: “Be bold in setting your goals and do not be afraid of taking risks”—an idea that he picked up from a study that his group carried out to know the difference between China and India (i.e. differences in their growth rates). The sum and substance of all these observations is: “courage”—it is just plain courage of the leader that made it all possible. 

Since time immemorial, everyone talked about courage passionately—some have philosophized it, some have poeticized it, while many others have written fiction. In the process, ‘courage’ has acquired different meanings to different people. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar reasons thus with his wife about courage when she pleaded with him not to go out of house fearing his death:  “Cowards die many times before their deaths: / The valiant never taste of death but once. / Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, /It seems to me most strange that men should fear, / Seeing that death, a necessary end, / Will come when it will come.”

It is of course a different matter that this rational Caesar however could not last longer, for he, as though seduced by his followers’ (over) idolization of his personality—“And that same eye, whose bent doth awe the world”—flaunts his bravery saying: “Caesar shall forth; the things that threatened me, / Ne’er looked but on my back. When they shall see / The face of Caesar, they are vanished.” 

But, it is the Spartans who appeared to have made an in-depth analysis to understand courage. Surprisingly, courage for them, does not mean a “desire to seek death in battle” (William Ian Miller, 2007). According to Spartans, courage is not heedless fearlessness. It is more about overcoming the fear that is felt. It is simply acting bravely while being conscious of the embedded risk and the stakes thereof. It doesn’t matter even if that awareness of risk causes fear to the fighter. It is their strong belief that one cannot afford to be “insensate” to the apparent death. A war, as Aristotle averred after a century, fought by “deliberate choice and purpose” depicts a better heroism. That is indeed what Posidonius did as against the Aristodemus’ “fury of wounded beast” that lacked a reason, a well-articulated motive and a principle. It is perhaps of this clear and distinct understanding of courage that Spartans could theorize that a “willingness to risk death in battle” is distinctly different from a desire to “seek death in battle” and that has what deprived Aristodemus of his glory in the battle of Thermopylae, for he only rushed forward with the fury of madness in his desire to be killed before his comrades’ eyes. 

The Spartans admit that Aristodemus “had indeed fought magnificently.” But comparing Aristodemus to Posidonius, they faulted him on three counts: One, Aristodemus wanted to die whereas Posidonius wanted to live; two, Aristodemus fought to regain his lost personal honour whereas Posidonius fought for the Polis; three, driven by these two, Aristodemus rushed forward with the fury of a mad man while Posidonius having subordinated his honour to that of the group’s interest did not abandon his position in the Phalanx’s Shield Wall and hence they glorified him over Aristodemus. Spartans—the ruthless warriors of the history—surprisingly, are known to use flutes as they approach enemy “to calm (their valor) in war lest it cast itself into rashness and frenzy, whereas all others are known to employ shrill sounds and powerful voices to stir and inflame the hearts of the warriors.”

Not surprisingly, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar—a known brave general and a generous but a proud ruler—too, cannot but display a similar disposition of gross indifference to omens and threats to his life, as Aristodemus did at the war of Thermopylae, when his wife, Calpurnia, pleads: “Alas, my lord, / Your wisdom is consumed in confidence. / Do not go forth today.” But Caesar having “… bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus…” preferred to proclaim: “…Danger knows full well / That Caesar is more dangerous than he. / We are two lions littered in one day, / And I the elder and more terrible, / And Caesar shall go forth.” And the end result of his decision is: death. 

Intriguingly, we could decipher a similar set of happenings even at the auctioning of Corus on January 31, 2007. Reports indicate that CSN having lost a chance to acquire a Steel Plant earlier, was hell bent upon gobbling Corus, and having hired the services of the Godzilla of mergers and acquisitions—Goldman Sachs—and being sure of banks’ willingness to fund its acquisitions, has out-bid Tatas initially by a hefty margin. On the other hand, Tatas have assembled a set of M&A experts from group companies and bank advisers to coolly work out a strategy—draw the upper-limit of the cost of acquisition and accordingly played their bidding. But CSN being so sure of its financial muscle, reported to have not bothered to inform the financing agencies about its entanglement in a legal dispute with the world’s largest iron ore mining firm—CVRD of Brazil—in which CSN-led consortium owned 13% stake. Indeed, this was originally considered as the greatest strategic advantage for the CSN in its bidding for Corus but CVRD’s right to first refusal over ore exports has only shattered the so-called strategic advantage. Nor did CSN make any effort to explain it out to the bankers, which balked them. And this proved to have narrowed down the options of Benjamin Steinbruch, the dominating CEO of CSN. If market reports were correct, Tatas having taken advantage of this development, displayed as though they were not quite sure of what they were doing and generated an impression in the market that they were out of the race, and went on coolly with their calculations. Ultimately, it is the party that has “executed the meticulously scripted” strategy and assiduously pursuing it has triumphantly won the game. 

The Tata Corus episode vindicates that Spartans were sound in their understanding and articulation of the right ‘psychology’ of courage. For Aristotle, courage is that which controls a “genuine and realistically based feeling of fear for the sake of a noble reason.” When it comes to businesses, as John Koter said, business leadership is essentially centered on “change” and “action”; a leader should have the courage to orchestrate a new vision—as Ratan Tata described ‘organic growth’ as the new means for doubling group companies’ revenues and profits after taking over the mantle—and strategy as that which empowers others to work on it, and exhibit their requisite strength of character to set right examples in terms of sacrifices to be made under the proposed changes. 

To accomplish results from such vision statements the leaders must exhibit moral courage. It is all about facing one’s own mental challenges driven by his/her core moral values. It is the innate strength of an individual to stand ethical in the face of a conscious awareness of the risks. A classic example of moral courage was displayed by Shakespeare’s Antony, who, when the drama was nearing the end praised Brutus: “This was the noblest Roman of them all. /… /And say to all the world “This was a man!” His treating soldiers and servants of the dead Brutus kindly and generously has only highlighted his innate ethical values.

When it comes to businesses, moral courage reflects in one’s steadfast commitment to uphold the “fundamental views of justice, honesty and fairness”. Moral courage of a leader “creates better culture in the organizations.” It is only when the organizational ‘care’ for ‘morals’ is missing that failures of the nature of Enron, WorldCom did occur. As J K Galbraith observed, it is only the “failure of courage and the conspiracy of silence” that results in failure of businesses. Here, it is worth recalling what Ratan Tata—the man of impeccable manners—once said in an interview: “We gave up an airline venture at the altar of government policy.” 

A business leader’s role should not end in mere displaying courage in handling businesses, but he should also instill courage in the organization and history is replete with many such examples. “Go!” so cried Alexander when his soldiers refused to follow him to the Indies, “go tell your countrymen that you left Alexander completing the conquest of the world.” We encounter a similar nudging by Shakespeare’s Henry V before the battle of Agincourt: “Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, / That he which hath no stomach to this fight, / Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse: / We would not die in that man’s company / That fears his fellowship to die with us.”

Similar is the style of Ratan Tata as reflected in his own words: “When I took over as Chairman, I set some targets for various group companies; for example, doubling revenues in three years, doubling profits in four years and so on. The initial reaction was: ‘We can’t do that.’ And I said, ‘why are you looking at only organic growth as an option. No one is stopping you from acquisitions’.” And that’s what he precisely did subsequently: Led his team standing up-front in acquiring Natsteel, Millennium Steel and now Corus. 

Courage too is, after all, contagious!