All About Failure
As leaders, we take on a lot in all areas of our life. For the most part, we succeed! But many times, we don’t. From the minor slip up to a full blown catastrophe, failure is a part of life and being a leader. Rather than deny or hide it, we need to learn to embrace failure as an opportunity for ultimate learning and growth. Skillsoft has some great content on failure that we can learn from.
Building Relationships Through Failure
Learning from failure has personal and professional benefits. How you behave when faced with setbacks and disappointment can speak a lot to your character and your leadership style. Your response to failure can actually even enhance your relationships, as people can see your actions and attitude when you fail and may want to work even closer with you (we all like a leader who is humble and forgiving, don’t we?).
Sure, talking about achievements can be exciting and motivating (receiving praise, accolades, and compliments in the right setting can feel pretty great). And sharing any setbacks and failures can feel a little weird — will we be scorned, ridiculed, or reprimanded?
Here’s the secret — everyone fails at some point in their life. Yes, even the classmate or boss that is seemingly perfect. Not everyone responds to failure productively, though.
When we actually own that we fail and share with others, we normalize that this is actually universal AND we can share productive ways that we learn from our failure. That way, we give others a chance to feel ok about their own failures and a productive way to possibly learn from their owns setbacks.
When you share you fail, you continue to showcase honesty, humility, integrity, and approachability as a leader. These are qualities that other people naturally gravitate towards.
Understanding the Different Types of Failure
Not all failure is bad! There are three main types of failure, and knowing the differences helps you understand when you’ve failed usefully and when you’ve simply messed up.
- First, there’s avoidable failure. This failure is unproductive and preventable (basic human error). These are things that probably cost us productivity or cause us embarrassment, but they don’t really serve any other learning besides “don’t do it again”.
- Next there is complexity failure. This type of failure is often a result of external influences beyond your control (like policies that have changed, or a natural disaster). These failures are often unpredictable but can still be catastrophic to us, so it’s important to have possible contingency plans in place.
- Finally, there is striving failure. This is failure that comes from trying (and is unavoidable and predictable). It’s the result of challenging new ventures, trying something you’ve never done before. This type of failure is where growth can occur!
How can you make sure your failures are more in the striving category and less in avoidable? What contingency plans might you need to make in terms of complexity failure?
Embrace the Success Cycle
The story goes that Thomas Edison had hundreds of attempts before he successfully invented the lightbulb. When he was asked about all the failures, he replied that he didn’t fail, he was just systematically eliminating all the flaws. Perhaps Edison realized that failure isn’t the opposite of success.
Rather this is part of a process known as the Success Cycle. The Success Cycle consists of 4 stages:
- Trying: This is where you attempt something new. This could mean there is potential for error, and that’s ok!
- Failing: New ventures often end in failure. Rather than running from this, we have to embrace failure and the possibility to grow from it. Give yourself permission to falter and slip up. Resist the urge to quit, or worse, not even try at all.
- Learning: Doing this part successfully means changing your mindset about failure — now, you need to see every experience as something you can learn from. Ask yourself, “What happened? What went wrong? What did I miss?” Then adjust your actions and go back to the Trying stage.
- Succeeding: This is the part where you celebrate and enjoy your accomplishments!
Ultimately, success is attainable, but only if you confront your fear and try.
Tom Peters says it this way: “Whoever tries the most stuff, wins.”
Think back to a time that you failed at something. Did you take the time to think about why? Did you change your actions and try again? If so, what was the result?
