Chief executive officers' courage

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to construct Chief Executive Officers' (CEOs) meanings of CEOs' courage. The focus was to understand courage from CEOs through their unique perspectives; therefore, the study was a constructivist study. Through qualitative semistructured interviews, the study noted the Personal Construct Theory (PCT) to establish what courage is, and is not, to the interviewees. For this study, a CEO was defined as “the highest-ranking executive in a company or organization, responsible for carrying out the policies of the board of directors on a day-to-day basis” (Pickett, 2006). Participants were 18 years of age and older, both male and female. Kelly's (1955) Repertory Grid Technique and Qualitative Content Analysis was used for data analysis. Six common themes emerged: Eye of the Tiger Spirit, Believe in Belief, Clarity and Acceptance of Self, Big Picture Perspective, Malleability of Hardiness, and Train Engine. The CEOs' elicited responses described CEOs' courage as having the attributes: ability to be resilient, conviction in their intentions, self-awareness, insightful, desire to improve/grow, and positive leadership. Trustworthiness of the Study was demonstrated by authenticity's criteria of fairness, ontological authenticity, educative authenticity, catalytic authenticity, and tactical authenticity.