How Brave Are You?
June 2021
Do you consider yourself a daredevil or are you a bit sheepish when it comes to taking on seemingly high-risk assignments? Are you likely to jump in with both feet and enthusiastically say “Yes, that’s for me! I’ll do that!” when a high visibility, never been tackled before challenge is placed in front of you? Or are you more apt to go full heads down, hoping the delegator will go away and instead find someone else to stick with such a nuisance task?
Although I have never considered myself to be extraordinarily daring, some people have told me they view me as fearless. Yes, I do tend to jump towards the fire, so to speak, when an unanticipated juggernaut with no predictable winning outcome suddenly appears in my path. That said, I do not consider myself foolhardy. I guess everything is relative. What some might consider brave depends on their perspective.
I have discovered over the years that my eagerness to take on what some might consider an audacious assignment is directly proportionate to either my passion for the mission, my dedication to the cause, my dissatisfaction with the status quo, or my fear of the predictable disaster that probably lies just beyond the horizon if no one more capable is willing to take charge and do something.
During this year’s Memorial Day observances, someone who knows my dedication to the cause of advancing women to senior leadership sent me a brief video in recognition of a few truly heroic women who accepted some extremely perilous assignments during World War II. The stories of these incredible heroines certainly made me take a much deeper look at myself.
As brave as some people think I am, I question whether I really could demonstrate the same level of courage as the women below:
Vera Atkins: As a young Jewish Romanian (her real name was Rosenberg), Vera worked in Bucharest before WWII. A firm believer in the power of ordinary citizens to wreak havoc, she became a British Intelligence Officer and smuggled information to Churchill. She was eventually assigned a high-ranking position in the “French” section of the secret British organization, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), under the Minister of Economic Warfare, for which she recruited British agents in France. After the war, an extremely dedicated Vera traced down nearly all her missing agents.
Virginia Hall: An American who was known for being over-achiever, Virginia took an embassy post in Turkey before the war. While there, she accidently shot her foot off in a hunting accident, which left her with a wooden leg and the nickname of the ‘Limping Lady.’ Virginia eventually left Turkey to serve as an ambulance driver in France, but she was forced to flee to Britain when France surrendered to Germany. In Britain, she was recruited by Vera Atkins to become the first female operative of the Special Operations Executive to be sent into France as a spy, where she trained the French resistance and cut vital Nazi supply lines. Later known as the war’s ‘Most Dangerous Spy,’ Virginia became the only civilian woman in WWII to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross—the US Army’s second highest military decoration for soldiers who display heroism in combat with an enemy force.
Odette Sansom Hallowes: After accidently enrolling by sending a postcard to the wrong government office—offering to help with the war effort—Odette became an allied intelligence officer for the Special Operations Executive. She was dropped into France in 1942 where she acted as a courier and assistant to Peter Churchill (no relation to Winston). The two were soon arrested and tortured in Paris. When Peter told the Germans that he was the nephew of Winston Churchill—and that Odette was his wife—they were both sent to a concentration camp. After the war, Odette testified against the camp commandant, who was subsequently hanged as a war criminal. Odette became the first woman awarded the George Cross—the highest award bestowed by the British government for non-operational gallantry not in the presence of an enemy.
Krystyna Skarbek: The daughter of Polish aristocracy. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, her attempts to enlist in the military were frustrated because she was a woman—until she presented the British secret service with a plan to ski into Nazi-occupied Poland to deliver British propaganda. She became a vital part of the resistance as a Polish agent of the British Special Operations Executive. Over and over again, she used her wits to evade capture and execution. Churchill’s daughter, Sarah, later claimed that Kystyna was her “father’s favorite spy.”
Violette Szabo: A Brit with a French mother who taught her to speak fluent French. She eventually met and married Etienne Szabo, an officer in the French Foreign Legion. When her husband was killed in action in North Africa in 1942, she was recruited to the “F” section of the British Special Operations Executive. During missions to France, she served as a courier to gather vital intelligence. She was ultimately captured and was executed by the Nazi’s at the Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1945. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross.
Susan Mary Gillian Travers: An Englishwoman and socialite who lived in France when WWII broke out. She trained as a nurse and became an ambulance driver for the French Red Cross. When France fell to the Nazis, she escaped to London via Finland and joined the Free French Forces. Susan became the only British military woman to be matriculated into the French Foreign Legion as a soldier and a driver in Syria and North Africa. When her unit was besieged by Rommel’s Afrika Corps, she enabled her convoy of 2500 troops to escape to safety by driving the lead vehicle— under machine gun fire, through enemy lines.
Nancy Wake: Born in New Zealand in 1912 and raised in Australia, she eventually married a wealthy man in France. When the war came, she wanted to help by driving an ambulance. There being few available at the time, she made her husband buy her one and started running a sort of underground railroad from their flat in Marseille. By helping downed allied servicemen escape to England—via Spain and the Pyrenees—she became the Gestapo’s most wanted fugitive and had a bounty of 5 million francs placed on her head. After escaping herself to Britain, she joined the Special Operations Executive as a Secret Service agent and spy. She was ultimately awarded the Medal of Freedom—an award bestowed by the President of the United States to recognize people for “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States”—for saving thousands of lives.
WOW. Could you imagine doing such things, either as a woman living in the midst of WWII, or as a woman today, in a place and time where women can do virtually anything they set their minds to?
In my October 2020 blog post, Real Success is Always Beyond Your Comfort Zone, I talked about how the only way to grow in your abilities—and truly create a WOW success—is by trying new things, putting yourself out there, stepping beyond your comfort zone. Meritorious actions such as those described above, may be well outside most anyone’s comfort zone. But without common, ordinary people who are willing to take risks way beyond their normal comfort zones, entire civilizations can sometimes be lost. Thank goodness there are people who, when such a time arises, are willing to selflessly risk their lives for a cause they deeply believe in. Would you be such a person?
I would like to think that if put in any of the situations that those women found themselves in, I would have done as they did. I would like to believe I would be willing to give my all to save my nation from tyranny or destruction if it came down to that. I would like to think I could be that brave. But you never really know until you are tested.
How about you? Just how brave do you think you would be? Would you jump in with both feet and say “YES, send me! I’ll do the job!” if it ever came down to that?
Thinking about things from this perspective, it makes the kind of “high-risk” assignments some of us face in the corporate world seem pretty trivial, doesn’t it? So surely, the next time you are asked to take on a risky assignment “to lead the good fight” at work, will you at least be willing to step up and give whatever it is a shot. What is the worst that could happen?
If you’ve got a story about bravery you would like to share, I’d love to hear it.