Failure is part of the maturing process; it happens to as all at sometimes it’s often unavoidable but we just don’t see it until it’s to late.
As leaders one of the toughest things for us is to watch members of our teams fail, especially where we see it coming, and know what to do to avoid it.
But often, our teams, and even our children, wont listen to us and won’t see it, until its too late.
Sometimes we just need to let them fail, people rarely learn from the mistakes of others, they usually need to make the mistake themselves before they learn from it.
It shouldn’t be this way but it is, we can try and help, and definitely should if the mistake would be serious enough, but we need to realise that sometimes our efforts are just in vain.
When this happens we should try and refrain from the “I told you so” comment as that doesn’t really help 🙂
We should work with them to help them learn from the mistake, not punish them for it.
Leadership isn’t just about being successful,it’s also about coaching and some of the best coaching comes from mistakes.
Gordon Tredgold
Another excellent post Gordon. It is how we deal with failure and the lessons learned that makes all the difference, easier said than done but totally agree a leaders role is to share the knowledge and experience that comes from failure and which makes us grow.
All the best,
Paul
p.s how is the book coming?
its quite difficult to fail and then bounce back. But that is what the difference between a leader and an ordinary person up there..