The theme of this week’s lecture is about Courageous Leadership. It is foundational for leaders to be courageous, especially when facing difficult decisions that may involve risks or uncertainties. The guest lecturer for this week was Mr. Phillip Yeo. He shared his personal experiences and insights on how courage has played a crucial role in his leadership journey, particularly in challenging situations where he had to make tough calls for the greater good. If you are new, this is a continuation of the IT2900 Weekly Reflection series where I share my responses to the weekly assignments of this course.

The previous week’s blog post was titled “Don’t Answer People’s Questions, Ask Them Back” You can take a look if you later find this article interesting.

Personal Takeaways

I believe that in this lecture, the first thing we heard about being courageous was that “Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same. And that’s why life is hard”. Prof. Ben raised this message as an introduction before the guest lecturer started his session. For me, that was no exception, it is the message that has stuck in my mind since the beginning of the class. Consistently thinking about it and hoped to find clarification or a deeper understanding of its implication. How can I know if I am being courageous and not stupid?

Fortunately, after listening to Mr. Yeo’s experiences and reflecting personally, I found a quite simple answer. It is true that both courage and stupidity involve doing something that hurts or risks harm. In both cases, one acts despite fear, pain, or potential loss. To outsiders, both may appear reckless. However, the difference lies in intent and awareness. Courage means you understand the risks but act anyway for a reason: for what is right, necessary, or meaningful. For Mr. Yeo, this meant breaking rules for the greater good of society, even at personal risk. Stupidity, on the other hand, is acting without understanding or considering the consequences deeply enough.

With that said, I want to point back to the title of this reflection, which I drew inspiration for from CS3230. In algorithm analysis, there is a concept known as Karp reduction. It suggests that if we have two problems, A and B, and we already know how to solve B efficiently (in polynomial time), then if we can reduce A to B in polynomial time, we can also solve A efficiently.

Similarly, I think we can reduce courage to stupidity. If stupidity is doing something reckless without thought, then courage is doing something reckless, but with reflection and purpose. Everyone who has once acted foolishly can become courageous if they take the time (in “polynomial time”) to think carefully about the consequences and the meaning behind their actions. Therefore, becoming courageous is not impossibly hard; it just requires conscious reasoning and purpose.

As for areas in life where I want to be more courageous, one is during group projects. I often find myself hesitating to confront unproductive teammates or to push the team toward higher standards, worrying that I might appear bossy, controlling, or inconsiderate. However, through this lesson, I realize that avoiding these confrontations out of fear might be the stupid choice because it prevents the team from improving and creates more frustration eventually.

To apply this lesson, I plan to be more willing to take initiative and express uncomfortable truths when necessary. Will remind myself that being courageous is not about acting without thought, but about acknowledging the risks, preparing for them, and doing what is right for the group’s success.

Roleplaying as a Courageous Leader

Perceived Issues

There are few issues regarding the situation. One of them is on the policy breaching where the boss decided to offer free tickets (violating the standard that all events of the company should be chargeable), which could undermine fairness overall. Therefore, there will also be loss of trust among paying participants, they will dissatisfy, and the company may face reputational harms.

Aside, there are also internal problems including team workload. Now, the boss burdens the team with last-minute changes and additional administrative tasks just two days before the event. This will increase the tension and stress for the team, while also reduces trust in leadership. Furthermore, there will also be a tension between maintaining external relationships and internal integrity, as the need to appease the key partner is the key factor driving the boss.

Wearing the Hat of Team Leader

For the paying participants, I will offer giving future event credits or exclusive content to maintain the fairness. Aside, I also believe we can make the free tickets more transparent, by marking them as sponsored seats from company’s marketing budget (like partner invitation). It may also be beneficial to send thank-you vouchers to those who supports the ticket early to rebuild goodwill.

To maintain trust with the team, I will apologise and explain to them that while the decision was difficult, leadership sometimes requires balancing conflicting parties. I would share the steps being taken to restore fairness and also express appreciation to their efforts, which I believe will reinforce psychological safety to show that their concerns are heard.