Letting your ‘failures’ guide your leadership
No leader is perfect. There will be a time in your life where you will run into a bump in the road. Bill Gates started with a company called Traf-O-Data – I’m sure you know him for other reasons. His success (or lack of) in Traf-O-Data did not prevent him from becoming a successful leader. In fact, he’s now one of the most influential ones on the planet.
Leadership is like a delicate eco-system. Everything has to work in harmony in order for it to be successful. When you are early on in your career, it can be challenging to find that balance. Even the most experienced leaders will make mistakes and encounter issues out of their control. After all, we’re all humans.
Good leaders, however, will make sure that failure is not a barrier to their success. It’s not the end of the road for your business, or for your role as a leader. They are learning experiences, a way for analyse where your strengths and weaknesses lie and what needs work. The best leaders are ones that have faced hurdles.
Negativity will be one of your biggest stumbling blocks. You might feel like you aren’t up to the task of leader or embarrassed that you made mistakes that seem preventable with hindsight. This negativity will hold you back from thinking logically and rationally. Yes, hindsight will tell you that things could have been done differently; but hindsight is there for you to learn, not to make you feel bad. Don’t feel embarrassed by how you could have done things but apply them in the future.
The above is true for anyone, whether you’re a leader or not. However, what’s most important for a leader is holding yourself accountable. If you made the mistake, own up to it. You set an example for the team so it’s important to show that it’s okay to make mistakes, as long as you are effectively dealing with them. If you try to blame others or sweep it under the rug, you both upset and anger those blamed as well as make yourself unapproachable by staff who may have made their own mistakes. It’s important for staff to feel like they can come to you with mistakes so that you can work together efficiently to fix them.
If a mistake seems to have catastrophic consequences, it’s time to take a step back and look at the entire picture. Often, these mistakes aren’t as big as they first appear, so communicating well with your team allows everyone’s perspectives to help you fix it. If you still aren’t sure what to do, you also need to consider if you are trying to achieve the right goals. The issue might not be your leadership, but the goals you lead yourself around. Make sure that what you are working towards is attainable, realistic and matches with your values.
Once you accept that ‘failure’ isn’t actually failure, but mistakes that lead to important and useful lessons, you have the ability to become a much stronger leader.