It takes a lot of nerve to write a book about courage.
But if there’s anything Gus Lee has learned in 59 years on this Earth, it’s that nothing matters more. And it’s not like he had a choice.
“I had to write this book,” he says, sipping a hot drink on a cold day at Pikes Perk in Colorado Springs. “It wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Readers know Lee’s fiction best – “China Boy,” about growing up Chinese-American; such best sellers as “Honor and Duty,” “No Physical Evidence” and “Tiger’s Tail”; and the story of his parents, “Chasing Hepburn.”
His new book, “Courage: The Backbone of Leadership” (Jossey- Bass, $27.95), is not only a departure for him, but also may steer his writing career permanently into nonfiction.
Lee’s varied and colorful careers have included drill sergeant, paratrooper, assistant dean, command judge advocate and legal counsel on ethics to the U.S. Armed Services Committee.
His mentor at West Point was none other than H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who endorses “Courage” thusly: “Gus Lee has walked the walk and talked the talk.”
It wasn’t always so, Lee is the first to admit.
He recalls acts of cowardice from age 6, things for which he seemingly has not forgiven himself. A small, sickly child, and the only Asian youngster in an African-American neighborhood, he says he got beat up a lot as a kid. His father finally took him to a boxing gym to learn to defend himself.
“The first time the coach told me to get into the ring, I ran away!” he recalls, laughing at himself. “I didn’t want to get hit anymore!”
In his book, and in his life, he talks a lot about Coach Tony, the man who ran the gym and who taught him the first principles of leadership and courage.
He recalls he was fascinated with the concept of leadership as young as age 10. He saw Coach Tony as a leader.
“He was big and tough, and I thought that’s what being a leader was,” he says. “Later, I thought leadership came from education, then I believed it came from charisma. Then I thought it came from good communication skills and a psychological understanding of others. Finally, I realized leadership came from ethics and integrity and courage – and that’s where my journey ended.”
He reread Aristotle, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr. and others who talked about what makes a good leader. He studied to become an ethicist and began his own business, Integrenomics, consulting with companies in trouble. He also worked on his own courage – trying to see himself realistically and change what he didn’t like. He learned to manage his anger to become a better father and husband, he says.
A plea for integrity
Lee’s services as an ethics and leadership consultant have been in demand. He has counseled the leadership of such businesses and institutions as the Smithsonian, Bank of America, Kaiser Permanente, Whirlpool, Harvard, Stanford and other universities – even the FBI and his alma mater, West Point. He has been on radio talk shows and published articles in the likes of Time magazine.
In “Courage,” he tells of corporate corruption and how a few principled companies turned themselves around. He names names (and has releases from most of them to do so, which he thinks is pretty courageous). He also applies his concepts and methods to personal relationships.
And the one question he is always asked after a consultation is, “Is there a book I can read?”
“So I finally wrote it,” he says.
The root of America’s moral decline is this: “The bottom line is all that matters. We have taken integrity and character – two crucial elements of courageous leadership – off the table.”
The devil of indifference
Lee bemoans the state of America’s leadership, both political and economic. There is too little integrity, too little evidence of ethics, and a woeful lack of what he calls “moral intelligence.”
What separates humans from animals is courage, he says.
“The first time a caveman – no, it was probably a woman – risked her life to save a child not her own, humans took an amazing evolutionary leap,” he says. “She showed courage.”
Courage was a key element in the establishment of the United States as a nation.
Through “Courage,” Lee is “hoping that readers will rediscover the roots that gave birth to this country. We have become spoiled. We want to satisfy our appetites for pleasure. Historically, that leads to profound failure. Ask the ancient Romans.
“I confess I’m sick of seeing selfish, appetite-driven executives destroying the goodwill built by good companies.”
It’s not that companies like Enron are trying to undermine other, more ethical enterprises. They just don’t care.
“I know what courage is because I know its exact opposite: indifference,” he says.
In his book, Lee profiles company executives who have shown courage and moral leadership. They don’t make headlines.
“The most courageous people I know are the most respectful, and the most humble.”
When he was a paratrooper Lee says he “screamed every time I jumped out of an airplane,” but he doesn’t jump anymore. People don’t have to do something physically frightening or dangerous to prove courage, he says. You do have to be willing to stand up for what’s right and denounce what’s wrong.
“There’s too little of that in our culture today,” he says.
Courage, like algebra, can be taught, Lee believes. Unlike math, we learn much of it from example. But like math, if you don’t keep using it, you’ll quickly lose grasp of it.
Reading Lee’s book is just the first step to developing courage. “You can’t learn boxing from reading a book either. You can learn about it, but to be any good at it, you have to practice it. A lot.”
Linda DuVal is a freelance writer in Colorado Springs.
