You’re struggling to build relationships with your team. How can you use failure to improve them?

Failure is a way to learn. Every athlete and team knows that you cannot always win. Part of the fun of life is to continue to try new things and anyone who thinks they will always win or succeed is not living in reality! I always tell women (especially) that perfection holds us back. Just do it-execute and then react to the information and energy. Hockey is a read and react sport so it's a fantastic training ground for life. The Great one said "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" I live by that mindset - you may wish to try it too! :)

Failure is often, simply a necessary step on the path to success. It’s not enough to “not hide it, not deny it or not blame others.” You need to find ways to encourage it, recognize it, and celebrate the learning that comes from it. As a leader, you have more power than you think when it comes to influencing the team’s culture and response around failure. But to get there you have to first be in touch with your own response. If you fear failure yourself, it will be difficult to create the necessary environment to embrace it.

Startups do this well. Fail fast and fail forward, in other words, try something new out quickly and learn from it. Giving employees the freedom to experiment and take calculated risks is something that isn't often done. There needs to be a level of psych safety in order for people to take these kinds of risks to innovate. When they fail, don't blame, don't shame, just support them.

Failure can be a powerful teacher when building relationships with your team. Use failure as an opportunity to demonstrate vulnerability and humility. Share your own mistakes openly, showing that everyone is fallible. Encourage team members to do the same, fostering a culture of trust and learning. Reflect on failures together, extracting valuable lessons and insights. Use these experiences to strengthen bonds and improve communication. Remember, as Thomas Edison famously said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Embrace failure as a stepping stone to success, and let it guide your team toward stronger relationships.

One of the most familiar adages is: "if at first you don't succeed, try try again." There's good reason for that. We can almost always learn to improve a process and our teamwork. All of us are works in progress. Sometimes, overnight success is a curse, because it can trap us into one way of doing things. Of course, calculated experimentation and creative insight is not the same as bomb throwing and chaos. The idea is to keep getting better. We can continually improve and narrow our focus, but at least a little trial and error is often beneficial -- and that means allowing room for some errors into our models.

Being an appropriately vulnerable leader can be a superpower. This doesn't mean that you share all the feelings you experience, but know when to say you've made a mistake and when to show empathy. We are all humans at the end of the day.

It's important to take ownership when something goes wrong. Be direct and transparent in sharing what happened with your team. One of the most important things to remember is to not just mention what went wrong, but mention what you'd like to do to fix it, set the new goal and instead of laying out a plan, get the team involved to how you want to achieve the goal as a group. After all, taking ownership together is a great start to building, and sometime, even mending relationships.

If only you understand that failing is still testing for a better solution… the approach will change naturally. But changing mindset is the key.

One of the best ways to demonstrate a growth mindset and foster trust is to share your own failures transparently with the team. By being vulnerable and talking about when you missed the mark, you make it safe for others to do the same. Discuss both what you felt in the situation and what you learned. Acknowledge your feelings of disappointment or embarrassment or even fear when you failed. Then focus on the things that you learned by failing and how you put those lessons to use the next time.

Opening up about our own mistakes and challenges shows we're all human and nobody's perfect, not even the boss. It's like saying, "Hey, I mess up too, and that's okay." This honesty can really bring us closer together, making everyone feel more comfortable to share, support each other, and learn from our slip-ups. Plus, it turns the workplace into a more understanding and tight-knit family, where we're all rooting for each other and growing together.

This is part of creating psychological safety. Each failure is a learning and there are usually pieces that can be utilized for future versions of products. Celebrate the calculated risk, the fact the employee felt comfortable enough to try something new and apply the learnings to future work.

If we repeat this mantra, "Every failure is an opportunity for exponential growth and success," we will stop seeing failure as bad. The same goes for others' failures. It brings us closer to them when we stop criticizing, punishing, and shaming them for their failures and instead appreciate, celebrate, and encourage them to unravel the treasure behind that failure. In that process, the relationship between you and your team gets stronger.

One of the most underrated ways to quickly improve relationships between leaders and their teams is to seek help. Most leaders are wary of seeking help from their teams in difficult situations. They think they need to be Superman to solve every problem independently. They need to be 'know-it-all.' But the reality is that when you seek help from your team, they feel valued. They also see the human side of you. This helps strengthen the relationship further.

Like in networking, the "giver" mentality is the perfect foundation for mutual trust. You don't need to wait for a mistake to offer help - in a nonintrusive or noncontrolling way, of course. As a result, when you are the one who needs help, your teammates will be more than happy to help.

I used to think that asking for help was a sign of weakness. Lately I've learned that it's an example of strength. When we ask for help, we're signalling that we're not willing to give up. Find the helper and ask. And when you can help, let it be known. You'll get where you're going faster, and, even more importantly, you won't be going by yourself.

Be quiet and listen. This is what I failed to do as a new leader over 15 years ago. I presented as the expert and my mission was to teach; however, no one told me they wanted to learn. Leaders should say "I don't know" more often and ask for input. It's also good to position questions as a team issue; therefore, it takes a team to problem solve. This can start with something like "I've noticed...which impacts....and I would like us to brainstorm some ways to address this so that we (outcome favored by staff)." Leaders will have to be humble in their interaction, be easily accessible (but not always available) and be willing to say "I made a mistake and this is a new checks and balances system put in place to help track things better.

When using failure to improve team relationships, implement regular reflection sessions where the team can constructively discuss failures, focusing on lessons learned rather than assigning blame. This can foster a culture of continuous improvement. Personalize recognition by acknowledging individual efforts to overcome challenges, which can boost morale and motivation. Encourage peer-to-peer feedback and support, enhancing team cohesion. As a leader, model resiliency and a positive attitude towards failure, demonstrating its role in personal and professional development. This approach can transform the team's perception of failure into a dynamic tool for strengthening relationships and fostering a supportive, innovative environment.

Have a conversation, understand their aspiration, what motivated them, their passion, what energize them, etc. Understand their obstacle and how can you help to support their success.