When you say that something "takes guts" it means that the person who's doing it needs to be brave. For example:

Being a police officer takes guts, for sure.

I know that it took guts to stand up against your boss, and I respect your courage.

You can see from these two sentences that we usually say "___ing takes guts" or "it takes guts to ___".

When you say that something "takes guts", you're saying that you respect the person for being brave.