What do you do if embracing failure is a crucial step in your journey as an educational leader?

We need to start off reflecting upon the whole idea of failure: does it mean that something unexpected happen and we couldn’t react well? Does it mean that we couldn’t achieve the objectives that were set? How have we prepared for those things? How much should we have prepared for them? Those questions could help us understand that what is named as failure could be just lack of preparation, planning and reflection. If we find the time to consider the different scenarios and ways to deal with the unexpected occurrences, we can start to see “failure” as part of a learning path and not fear it.

Being ready to embrace failure is a crucial step towards the development of you as an individual and your organisation as a whole. This is even more relevant in education as our objective should always to be innovate and explore avenues for growth of our students. Once you are crippled with fear of failure, no Innovation will take place, hindering growth of the organisation allowing the competition to surpass you sooner or later.

You actually have to acknowledge that there is fear of failure and fear of disappointment and fear in general just to begin to grow from the experience.

In my opinion, fear is simply defined as false evidence appearing real. Any time I was "afraid" to fail at something new, different, or out of my comfort zone I realized that the emotion I was encountering was actually just negative self talk and overthinking every little detail. This led me to teach my students to always show up with integrity and authenticity because no matter how much we prepare, plan, or study we do not have as much control outside of ourselves as we believe. Showing up with integrity and authenticity, allows us to not only show up as our best selves but also creates a safe space within ourselves and community to just be human. We all will make mistakes but remaining genuine and morally upright our society will thrive.

Recognizing fear of failure is crucial. As an educational leader, create a safe space for risk-taking and learning from mistakes. Normalize failure, provide constructive feedback, celebrate effort, lead by example, foster community support, and set realistic expectations. Promoting this culture empowers individuals to embrace setbacks as opportunities for growth.

Sharing failures connects in beautifully with showing vulnerability, which we know from Brene Brown's is a quality that people look for in both colleagues and friends alike. Revealing our failures also is one of the best ways to demonstrate humility, which helps us to garner trust and be more fallible with those that we work closely with. Finally, sharing failures fosters a true culture of learning where it's clear that we value failure as one of the key gateways to learning.

One way to build trust here is to celebrate failure and to reframe it as learning. Dan Sullivan teaches the "No Wasted Experience" journal prompt. Step 1: Write the context of the failure. Step 2: Identify 5 positive things that happened as a result. Step 3: Identify 5 things within your control so it never happens again.

Implementing new ideas is built on a foundation of trust. The school team must consider past experiences to realize that a proposed new system will solve problems they face. When they understand the “why”of the situation, which is based on clear, factual communication, they will more easily accept the proposed implementation. The ongoing challenge is realizing that no one completely likes change. Even the most flexible of us have certain familiar and comfortable processes that we prefer because they work well for us. When we understand the purpose of a potential change, see why a proposal has value, and realize that we have voice and agency in how the change is carried out, then success in meeting the change goal is a likely outcome.

Cultivating Trust takes time as the name suggests. It is like growing a tree or a plant - it is not instantaneous. Trust is borne out of tests and tribulations. Failures and successes. It is not just in failures you know the colleagues, but also in success when someone takes credit for the work one has done. Cultivating trust takes two to clap. But always be the first one to build that safe ground.

Failure is a chance for collective learning. Gather with your team and students to analyze what went wrong. Reflective practices like after-action reviews offer valuable insights. Emphasize that failure is a step towards success. Learning together fosters a shared understanding that mistakes fuel development.

Team work is one of the most vital part of success in any organization. Teaming will always produce greater results than when we work independently. In our school, we frequently use the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) process, which works well with teams. The team defines a problem, then PLANs actions to address the problem. They implement the plan (DO). They gather data based on results and STUDY the results. Finally based on their conclusions they determine next steps (ACT) — either continue on, modify actions, or throw it out. They also chart the results, which gives everyone a visual representation of the issue. This tool is simple to design yet incredibly powerful to address problems and measure effectiveness of actions.

Research shows that learning in teams typically leads to better learning. Why is that so? It is because we are learning from each other, not just the knowledge but the ways of working. And it contributes to social learning where we can build on each other's expertise and experiences, collaborating on potentially innovative projects. But learning together is not always guaranteed with successful results, and needs some sort of facilitation or self-management, and discipline. Learning together allows for learning beyond what we would have normally achieved on our own as we learn the shortcuts etc. As in any aspect of learning, this needs to be done with reflection. It is fun learning together, even with AI machines.

Students must know that everyone starts from scratch, facing challenges and setbacks. Rather than seeing successful people as naturally gifted, students should understand that hard work trumps innate talent. Teachers and parents should share their failures to show that setbacks are normal. Even those who excel in prestigious exams like IIT or IIM or IAS have faced failures in their school exams and have cried about their bad performances. When students hear this they can connect better with you. They can understand that despite encountering failures, diligence and hard work can alter life's trajectory.

I'm mystified by the way this question is worded - there is no "if" in this situation, it is a "when" scenario. No one succeeds without embracing some kind of failure, therefore it is important to be honest about your failures and mistakes. Being honest creates a culture of trust and provides guidance for how you'd like your team to respond to setbacks.

While mentoring students on building their own d'Skills (digital, real-world skills they've applied to help small businesses), I'm also building a digital business. A huge component of this is teaching students how to build resilience. So being honest about my own struggle with resilience (while building d'Skills) has been huge. I actively post videos and content about my own struggles as a business owner who's still a "work in process" and share with students that it's easy to listen to "How I Built This" and forget there's a lot of business owners who'd be better featured on "How I Flopped This". Sharing transparently about struggles is incredibly important to students. The more open and honest we can be as leaders, the better.

As a leader, your response to failure sets the tone. Share your own setbacks, highlighting lessons learned. Your openness inspires resilience in others, reframing failures as growth chances. Modeling this resilience fosters a determined outlook in your team and students.

Modeling resilience is important. The question is when is a good time? Often we do not showcase our failures, struggles, trials, and tribulations, for it is perceived negatively when we are still climbing the ladder. It is only when we reach the top, that many of us can and are willing to share the stories of resilience. And sometimes rightfully so because when we are still on the journey, we are still figuring it out. When do you think it is possible to model resilience, realistically? How does the context influence this?

In my experience as an educational leader, embracing failure has been transformative. One significant instance was when a new curriculum implementation faced unexpected challenges, resulting in student disengagement. Rather than shying away from the failure, I led my team in a thorough analysis of what went wrong. We identified gaps in teacher training and student support, leading us to revamp our professional development programs and enhance student resources. This not only revitalized our curriculum but also fostered a culture of resilience and innovation within our institution. Embracing failure became a catalyst for positive change and continuous improvement.

Here are some steps to take: 1. Cultivate a growth mindset: Encourage yourself and others to view failure as an opportunity to learn and improve rather than a sign of inadequacy. 2. Create a safe environment: Foster a culture where failure is not punished but seen as a natural part of the learning process. Encourage open communication and constructive feedback. 3. Reflect and learn: After experiencing failure, take the time to reflect on what went wrong, what can be learned from the experience, and how to improve in the future. 4. Encourage risk-taking: Encourage yourself and others to take risks and try new approaches, even if there is a chance of failure. Innovation often stems from taking risks.

Embrace and learn from failure, then implement changes to prevent similar setbacks. Use insights gained to improve processes, strategies, and teaching methods. This proactive stance mitigates future risks and shows a commitment to continuous improvement, vital in educational leadership.

Implementing changes is one of the toughest call in my views. The example of going digital learning as a result of Covid-19 forced us to implement many changes in the education sector. But this happened because there was no other way out. Otherwise, implementing changes is always difficult to implement. Why: Because it means time, effort and resources. Starting small in progressive steps, and implementing changes with early champions to share their success stories and case studies helps to show the ropes to help others. But if we need to radically transform immediately, then what we need would be situations like Covid-19, or sanctions. Growth mindset helps implement changes.

Reflection must be a studied process in any organization if improvement and quality mean anything to it. We make reflective practice a regular part of our actions. In leadership meetings, and team meetings school-wide that process is used. We collect data and feedback, we analyze it and discuss what it means. That data and discussion becomes the basis for the actions we take. Genuine data-based reflection is the only way we in any organization can assess the effectiveness of the actions and we take. If we just act on hunches or best guesses, that allows too much chance for miscalculation and wasted effort, which will lead to lack of trust from members of our school community.

First of all, the concept of failure should not exist. But the idea that each step along your journey is a learning experience should be prevalent. You cannot strive if there isn't any opportunity to improve. Each step along your journey is a challenge to your best within the abilities you already possess or to do it better with the abilities you gain.