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Failing might just be the best thing that's ever happened...
Is failure actually the key to success?
Failure…just the word can be enough to give us the shivers!
If it’s used to speak about our work it can be a daunting prospect. Nobody wants to fail – and the fear of failure can be a heavy burden, at any stage of your career…
…but is it really as bad as you think?
Failure – or the fear of it – can be a barrier to making any real progress. Those bold, brave changes, trying something new, expanding beyond what we know we can achieve to test our real limits…none of that can happen if you let the fear of what might go wrong (how you might fail…) get in your way.
But what’s even more true is that nobody ever changed the world by sticking with what’s safe…
If you reframe ‘Failing’, and instead see it as learning, suddenly you see things differently.
Something not working out suddenly stops being a tragedy, and instead becomes an opportunity for some new learning; you didn’t fail, you learned what doesn’t work, which is a vital step in then learning what does!
For any business – and any business Leader – failure can be one of the most powerful tools in your development and growth. How could failing make you the best leader you can be?
Nobody enjoys the feeling of failure. Of missing a target, getting something wrong, wasting resources – or letting people down – but if you never experience failure, never mess up, and never struggle to reach your targets, are you ever stretching the limits of what you can do?
Can any of us really grow or improve if we don’t push past what’s easy and comfortable?
More importantly – can you really lead your team, and lead their progress, if you don’t teach them that failure is just part of success?
Rather than ‘failing’ being the end of the world, or a traumatic event that could cost someone their career, teach the people you lead that they can try new things, and explore different ways to work, with your support. That falling short of their goal is a way to learn; to identify barriers or challenges, and map a reliable path to overcoming them. Learning isn’t a straight path from A to B; it’s a meandering journey that explores a wide range of possibilities – and every mis-step shapes the details of a map you’re creating to teach those who come next. Each challenge comes with opportunity, and each opportunity with expanding your collective understanding, and the confidence to face the next.
Great Leadership should never mean that your people are afraid of you. Of failing – or the consequences you might dole out when they do. If your people don’t feel safe and supported, they will never be able to perform anything more than ‘fine’ – and nobody has ever felt fulfilled, nor any business thrived, working within what’s just fine…
Without growth, without development, what benefit can you and your people really get from your work? What reward? What incentive to continue pursuing the next achievement?
Failing is inevitable - but it doesn't have to be a negative experience
There isn’t a person alive who hasn’t, at some point, failed to achieve something. Failure is a universal truth – but how you respond to it matters far more than how you got there. Equally, leadership – at every level – comes with failure. The burden of that failure – whether it’s an individual, a team, the business as a whole – inevitably falls more significantly on the shoulders of its leadership, and it’s you that your wider workforce look to for how they should respond.
Do you want them to live, and work, in fear of punishment or retribution – or to seek solutions? Do you want to micro manage every step they take, to maintain control over the future, or to build a team who have the confidence, capacity and skills to face new challenges autonomously, confident that their experience and insight is respected?
Successful leadership means developing a workplace culture which allows for – in fact, which actively encourages – failure. A great leader allows people to fail so that they can more openly discuss those failures, understand what went wrong, share that learning and work towards avoiding that mistake being made again.
The most important aspect of leadership is having the confidence to support, stretch and develop your people, encouraging them to grow and learn in their roles, to do more than ‘fine’ and trust their instincts, to explore new technologies, new methods of working, new systems or approaches. To be more than they were. Creating this kind of culture in your team will benefit your people individually, improving their job satisfaction and outcomes, and the organisation benefits from their greater successes.
This, of course, applies to you as their leader too: to be a great leader you have to stretch your own limits, shoot for more, and develop your skills over time. Getting that promotion or leadership title isn’t the end of your path either – it’s just another step on your own journey of growth and development. Even those at the very top of their professional ladder can continue to learn, because the world we live and work in is constantly evolving.
Not only that, but if you have a working environment in which your people fear failure, or any repercussions which may come if they make a mistake, they aren’t going to stop making mistakes – but they are far more likely to hide those errors, to cover up any struggles they might have, to keep quiet about tasks they don’t complete, because they’re afraid of being ‘found out’. Being afraid of your reaction means that the people working for you can never be honest, open or entirely comfortable in their role – a toxic dynamic which not only impacts their individual potential (or even if they stay in your team!) but also limits the potential success of the whole organisation.
Remember: failure is just one step on your journey to success
Let’s use an example that has nothing to do with your work…computer games! Everyone’s played them at some point – and most of us have used cheats in a game before; what gives you more satisfaction – playing with all the cheats in place, so the game is a breezy walk through, or having to apply yourself to the challenges and actually winning the game on merit?
Ok, so it’s not a very complicated metaphor – but surely you’ll agree that there is a greater sense of achievement in overcoming an obstacle, in applying your experience and ideas, reaching a target, and in learning and applying new skills, and earning your success than to coast to one that was never in doubt? To achieve more than you did before; win more work, secure more clients, achieve higher targets – however you measure success, earning it feels better than stagnating in ‘fine’.
The only way to do that is to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone, take the calculated risks, try new ideas, listen to the people in your team, trust their advice or feedback, and push your work in new directions.
Yes, this comes with the risk of failing, or making mistakes along the way – but the reality is that failure is rarely as bad as we fear it could be – because when we fail, we learn more about ourselves – about our limitations, or gaps in our knowledge, or skills we haven’t mastered. And once those have been identified, the only possible next step is growth. Plugging those gaps, mastering those skills, developing our range and growing, as a person, as a leader, and as part of a successful, collaborative team.
No organisation – or leader – can stand still. The world is always growing, developing and changing – and the world of business, and the technologies we use in carrying business out – change at lightning speed. If you let the fear of failing get in the way of your progress, you’ll be left behind.
If the fear of failure is holding you back, we can help. Give the ASK team a call on 01234 757575 or email hello@askeurope.com