We’re all adults here and familiar with male anatomy. We also all learned about figurative language during our high school years. If you didn’t, blame your English teacher.
Having issued this disclaimer, I’m going to dive right in …
All of us are familiar with the figurative way of describing someone’s courage (male or female) by referring to the fact that they’ve either got big balls or no balls.
The origin of this sexist expression probably lies in a belief that large testicles on a male will relate to high levels of testosterone which will in turn result in the person with the large testicles demonstrating great courage. And that someone is also considered to be fearless.
Just to bust this myth … Many women have more courage than many men, and they don’t have any testicles.
So let’s turn this around. Instead of focusing on the male anatomy part of this, let’s look at the courage side of things.
Simple question: How much courage do we see among senior leaders around the world – from presidents, prime ministers and senior executives to the most junior leaders (who take their cue from more senior leaders)?
Simple answer: Very little, if any at all.
Next question: Why?
Next answer: It’s anybody’s guess but, according to the assumption, none of them really appears to display much courage – to make principled decisions that will benefit good, law abiding people and disadvantage corrupt and criminal people, putting them where they belong.
Which raises another question: What has this astonishing lack of courage done to the world and life as we know it?
There are, of course, many answers to that question. One of them is that this lack of courage has resulted in the corrupt and criminal prospering, thriving and having a wonderful time without fear of any consequences because, as the saying goes, “Evil prospers when good men (and women) do nothing.”
I therefore call on leaders at all levels of society and business to start searching within themselves to find their courage. If corruption is to be pushed back and even eliminated, good leaders need to find one another and make a collective stand against those who have no desire for the greater good of all but are only interested in stuffing their pockets and mouths with as much as they can get.
It’s a waste of time hoping such people will eventually come to their senses and stop taking what doesn’t belong to them. That won’t happen.
Good men and women who have the courage of their convictions need to say, “Enough is enough. I won’t let these people prosper on my watch,” and then take collective action.
Individual action won’t cut it. Collective action is what is required. We’ve seen what happens to individuals who have, on their own, taken a courageous, principled stand against the forces of darkness. They have been eliminated by guns for hire.
Does any leader today, male or female, have big balls? If so, they need to apply their big brains to their courage and find others with a similar size of balls and brains. When good people who have the position and the power to act in the interests of society start showing the size of their balls and brains, we might see the first glimmers of hope appearing of a society in which right and wrong are treated as such and consequences are applied to those who choose wrong before right.
Any takers?
Alan Hosking is the Publisher of HR Future magazine, www.hrfuture.net and @HRFuturemag. He is an internationally recognised authority on leadership competencies for the future and teaches experienced and younger business leaders how to lead with empathy, compassion, integrity, purpose and agility. In 2018, he was named by US-based web site Disruptordaily.com as one of the “Top 25 Future of Work Influencers to Follow on Twitter“. In 2020, he was named one of the “Top 200 Global Power Thought Leaders to watch in 2021” by peopleHum in India. In 2022, he has been named on the Power List of the “Top 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership in 2022” by LeaderHum.
