Fast Company: As a leadership advisor, I’ve worked with countless executives who wrestle with failure—some fearing it to the point of paralysis, others glorifying it without extracting real lessons. Failure is inevitable. Growth is optional. The difference between leaders who thrive and those who stagnate isn’t the absence of failure—it’s how they respond to it.
5 comments:
Is this not the question of the hour. I always work towards creating an environment where collaborators feel they have the freedom to fail, but what exactly does that mean? I suppose what I’m getting at is empowering each other to take ambitious risks that have the potential reward in product or in the lessons learned. I’m a firm believer in you never know unless you try. In this industry I want to do as many things as I possibly can and still sleep at least a little. Sometimes that means trying something and finding out it's not my cup of tea, or trying too many things and discovering where a healthy limit is for me currently. It’s the greatest gift to have from a creative team in an educational institution is the grace to make mistakes and work to be better. Now this doesn't mean slacking off or not caring, but rather actively seeking feedback and ways to improve, doing the best you can in that given moment.
Let’s talk about the title. I strongly disagree. I think there’s a lot that goes into the fear of failure, whether it was how you were raised, or how it will affect you and everyone around you. From a business standpoint, no business wants to completely fail, otherwise this means that they can lose their livelihoods, which is a big thing for most people. Now, for me, sure! I want to fail! Because, depending how much you value growth, that’s where true growth happens! There’s a sense of courage you need to have in order to fail, and that’s really hard. I’d argue it’s harder to fail than it is to succeed, at least for me. But also if you’re not truly satisfied with your work, are you really succeeding? This article mentions great ways to redefine what it means to fail, which can really help to not treat failure so harshly.
I think this is a very valid concept that is very fascinating to digest. As humans, I do think that a lot of our mindset of how we go into certain projects drastically influences the way that a project can be achieved. If you come into a project so afraid of the potential of failure, you’re going to start making stupid mistakes and freezing up from making decisions that need to happen, therefore being the inciting factor of the failure. This is part of why I believe in manifestation to an extent and actively training your mindset and how you talk to yourself, since I think it does make a difference to allow yourself to make mistakes and forgive yourself off the bat for anything that may happen, and it well lessen the pressure of failing and maybe mean that you won't mess up in the same ways as you could have.
I have read about this quite a lot. I spent a lot of time learning about how fear as a whole is one of the most influential things our bodies and minds experience. Something I picked up form this article is the term micro-failures. I like this idea that not all failures are at the same level. There is this phrase I heard at USITT this year that was “not everything is a 10, but not everything is a 5”. Meaning this idea that not every failure is going to make the world explode and end every leader's career, but some of them might. But if leaders lead as if every failure is a 10 nothing will happen. So I like that this term micro-failure gives this sense of safety when it comes to the idea of failing. Another thing I want to point out is that to be able to fail has a certain amount of privilege. Not everyone can afford to fail, not everyone can risk messing up and losing their job, so there is a balance to all of this that is important.
So true! The phrase ‘Failure is inevitable. Growth is optional’ is a great way to succinctly describe the limiting point of many leaders and organizations. Finding the balance between glorifying and being paralyzed by failure is a somewhat meta journey - one must try and fail, and choose to grow from it, in a constant iterative process of change. Taking mistakes and failures personally as a leader is a quick way to become stagnant, falling into that vicious risk-averse cycle. Cultural stigma isn’t something I’ve thought about in-depth before in this context, but it is logical that it would hold weight in such an environment. I think the points about encouraging micro-failures and reframing failures as catalysts for growth are exactly what good change requires, even as a prerequisite. Using setbacks to refine one’s approach, as the article mentions Oprah Winfrey did, is a trait of a useful leader. It’s all about perspective and how one uses it as fuel.
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