What the Cowardly Lion teaches us about courage

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The older I get, the more vintage my oldest memories become. It is increasingly harder to tap into early childhood moments when now even my twenties feel so far away. One of my clearest childhood memories, however, is Thanksgiving at my great uncle Marvin’s house. I must have been 5 or 6 years old. Establishing what would become a lifelong pattern, at a certain point in the evening I had enough of “family time” on the house’s ground floor well before it was time to leave and began to explore the upstairs.

While investigating, I discovered my dad’s first cousin Mark. He also must have had the desire to step away from the mishigas downstairs. Mark sat in a plush leather chair in his dad’s study, watching a movie I had never seen. The Technicolor images saturated my brain with wonder and vibrant hues. The story, the songs mesmerized me. As I sat on the floor near Mark, next to that chair, I fell in love with that particular movie and with movies in general. I wasn’t the first person to say “yes” to the world of movies from watching “The Wizard of Oz.”

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So much of the story of “The Wizard of Oz” is about people searching for external manifestations of parts of themselves which they already internally possess. Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion all travel along a hero’s journey to find out at the end that what they sought was with them the whole time. (Toto, self-possessed and not to be messed with, already had their stuff figured out.)

Of that crew, I empathized the most with the Cowardly Lion. At that age, I had a big lion stuffed animal that I dragged around with me, a giveaway my parents received from opening a Harris Bank (today known as BMO) account. The Cowardly Lion, we all discover watching the movie, is fierce when called to the mountaintop, but not without passing first through a valley of fear. He raps his psych-up song, Courage, as much for himself as for his crew. By the end of their adventure, the Cowardly Lion embraces his courage, and acts like the King of the Forest he dreamt of being.  

As Mark is to me, a first cousin once removed, so courage is to confidence. Self-confidence is a feeling of self-assurance that arises from an appreciation of our own abilities or qualities. Confidence in a work setting is also a crucial component of effective self-awareness, itself a key foundation for  emotional/social intelligence, the power skill we are exploring this year.

What is confidence?

When in doubt about how to act, one of my go-to guides is ancient Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, as longtime readers of Power Skills may have noticed. This true philosopher king, with an empire at hand, often worked through thought processes that were not that much different from that cowardly king of the forest thousands of years later. Striving to document the strength he needed to cultivate, Aurelius described confidence as a “fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig” in his quest toward “maintaining inner tranquility amidst external turmoil.”

Psychology Today defines confidence as “a belief in oneself, the conviction that one has the ability to meet life's challenges and to succeed — and the willingness to act accordingly.” It includes a caveat, however, that “being confident requires a realistic sense of one’s capabilities and feeling secure in that knowledge.”

Let’s marinate in the three components of Psychology Today’s definition of courage. The first is a “conviction that one has the ability to meet life’s challenges and to succeed.” No matter your nature or nurture, life will provide you with obstacles for which you can work to overcome or choose to crumble under. Confidence doesn’t determine the outcome, but it does determine whether you choose to fight or flight in face of that challenge.

The second component is a “willingness to act accordingly.” The delta between action and inaction is but a few neurons, a handful of synapses that wills your foot forward, your voice to sing with your expertise in response to a colleague’s question. Confidence is the whisper in your ear that tells you that your action will add value and that your choice to engage is an effective response to the challenge ahead of you.

The final component of confidence is “a realistic sense of one’s capabilities and feeling secure in that knowledge.” You may have the belief that you can tame that lion as you step into the circus ring, but if you’ve never trained with that wild beast, your confidence will protect you from the lion’s roar and not much else. Confidence without self-awarenesses is foolish pride. Stated as an equation: Confidence = Self‑Trust + Willingness to Act + Perceived Ability.

The relationship between confidence and self-awareness

With the exception of Dorothy, who had no way of knowing about the magical transportive powers of heel-clicking when wearing ruby slippers, the rest of her gang of heroes already possessed the smarts, hearts and surety each one needed to play a crucial role on their journey to the Emerald City. The Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion simply lacked the self-awareness to be confident around that possession. Self-awareness and confidence have a complex relationship.

Self-awareness guru and organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich, Ph.D., describes a positive correlation between self-awareness and confidence in her 2018 article in Harvard Business Review “What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It).”

When we see ourselves clearly, we are more confident and more creative,” she pens. Your gait when navigating a well-lit room is much different than when the room is pitch black. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses, your biases and impartialities helps you feel more confident when interacting in a situation that plays to those positive attributes. Just as importantly, self-awareness about past performance in times when you lacked confidence but still moved forward to positive results can gird your resolve to take action, even when you are supremely unconfident of the outcomes.

Eurich warns her readers in the same article that “experience and power can hinder self‑awareness.” This is a case where confidence can transform into overconfidence. The Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba for those Wickedheads out there) thought that her powers to set the Scarecrow on fire would have no unintended consequences, even though there was a bucket of her archnemesis, water, ahem, WITHIN ARM’S REACH FOR DOROTHY! That is a very visual example of experience and power hindering self-awareness.

We all have seen examples in our personal and professional lives of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which the acquisition of knowledge or competence in one area convinces one of their expertise in other areas. My mom is one of the best bakers I know, but her own experience with the Dunning-Kruger effect leads her to cook wildly different types of vegetables, all cut differently, all at the same time and all in the same manner. This leads to a disgusting combination of both under- and overcooked veggies. Everyone skips her vegetables at family gatherings except my cousin David, who I mock relentlessly for this choice (well out of my mother’s earshot, of course).

In our professional lives, this can look like engineers whose technical expertise makes them overconfident of their skills to convince executive leadership to invest in deferred maintenance projects, or product designers who think just because they know the ins and outs of a product that it also means they can expertly shepherd a sale through an engagement cycle. Daniel Kahneman, author of “Thinking Fast and Slow,” describes this as “our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”

Sometimes, being self-aware enough to be humble actually results in earned confidence.  Author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant says, “True self-awareness is admitting you don’t always know the answer — and that’s OK.”

Our society makes the phrase “I don’t know,” feel shameful to speak, but that is also why we suffer from the unintended consequences of overconfidence so often in our history. “I don’t know” is a cheat code for growth. Albert Einstein, one of the world’s smartest people, often touted his limitations. “The more I learn,” Albert said, “the more I realize how much I don't know." (Wise words, even for a man who couldn’t outsmart “Animaniacs” siblings Yakko, Wakko and Dot.)

How do I improve my confidence?

The Cowardly Lion was able to improve his confidence through a combination of support from his peers and a medal from the “Wizard of Oz.” Since most of us do not have an opportunity to interact with wizards handing out medals, we are left to our own devices when it comes to improving our confidence.

The first step is to get into the mindset that we can improve our confidence. Leadership coach Ann Howell in her 2021 Harvard Business Review article “How to Build Confidence at Work,” urges us to “remember that your lack of confidence is not an inherent flaw. …  Confidence can be learned and practiced.” She reminds us that “any mindset shift is going to take time. … Start small and be deliberate about each effort.”

The Cowardly Lion isn’t ready to take on the Wicked Witch at the start of his journey with Dorothy and the gang. He isn’t even ready to take on his own shadow. Slowly but surely, he gains belief in himself that he can be confident in his courageousness. Whether it is performing power poses, listening to an empowering song or starting a list of areas in your career where you are confident in your abilities, starting is the most important act.

Another way to improve your confidence is to take pride in the value you bring to your personal and professional relationships. Erica McKenzie, CEO of CreativeUConsulting Group, reminds us that we are people “of value, adding value … that far exceeds the paychecks and extends to the benefit of others because you show up.”

For those in health care facilities management, that value is more than just keeping an electrical system up and running. Your efforts with that electrical system translate into lives saved, babies born, people being able to properly say goodbye to loved ones before they pass. But it is important that you back that value up with the knowledge you need to deliver. Famed tennis legend Arthur Ashe said, “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” Ashe was sublimely confident that he would get to the ball to return to the shot, but that confidence was born from practicing returning that same shot over and over and over and over and over and over.

When you are going in to speak with the executive leaders about your budget request, practice your presentation. Find someone with only a cursory understanding of the topic who can only give you 10 minutes and who is answering emails as you are practicing your presentation. The more times you say the words, anticipate the questions, prepare your responses, the more confident you will be in your presentation skills.

Counterintuitively, another way to boost your confidence is to embrace vulnerability. President Teddy Roosevelt confirmed, “The only [person] who never makes a mistake is the [person] who never does anything.” Mistakes are experiments that have taught us in their failure rather than their success. Famed inventor Thomas Edison was fond of correcting those who questioned his success rate. “I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that did not work,” he quipped. Former Google and Yahoo executive Marissa Mayer once said, “I always did something that I was a little not ready to do. … That’s how you grow.” So be prepared to fail, to make mistakes, to embarrass yourself. As with all things, this too shall pass and you will be stronger because of it.

Follow your own yellow brick road

The Cowardly Lion and friends were lucky. They had a literal path to follow. But as with most things in life, you will not have your road to improved confidence laid out quite as specifically, grandly and as a golden-hued as they did. You will have to create your own path toward self-confidence informed by “a belief in oneself, the conviction that one has the ability to meet life's challenges and to succeed — and the willingness to act accordingly.” The Cowardly Lion teaches us that "true courage is facing danger when you are afraid."  So, it's OK to be afraid. It’s the yellow brick road to confidence. 

Adam Bazer, MPD, senior director of thought product development, ASHE.