20 Leaders Share Lessons Learned By Embracing The Value Of Failure

Failure is often viewed as an obstacle on the road to success. Still, it can also serve as an influential teacher, offering valuable lessons and paving the way for professional and personal growth.

Valuable insights can be gained from failure through introspection and resilience, shaping one's perspective and approach toward future endeavors. Below, 20 Forbes Business Council members share times they have failed and the lessons they learned from those experiences that guided them later success.

1. Learn The Importance Of Balance

One failure I experienced was overemphasis on a single client and employee. I learned the importance of balance and not relying on one person or client. Embraced challenges as opportunities. - Harsh Patel, Water and Shark

2. Consider How Your Decisions Impact Others

I bombed my first job interview when I was transitioning out of the military. I focused too much on my technical skills and failed to mention people. It is important to consider how your decisions and leadership style impact people. I keep this top of mind now. My interviews improved drastically when I was better able to communicate this, and I now consider teambuilding one of my superpowers. - Kandis Porter, Effective Flow Connections

3. Keep Trying For Success

I always say that I paid a fortune for my education because my failures have been costly. The biggest thing I have learned is that you always have to keep trying. Success is not easy, so never give up on your dreams. Your failures are all learning experiences. Don’t waste them. - Charlie Tuzzi, Cameo by Copland Cleaners & Winzer Cleaners

4. Trust, But Verify

Early in my SEO consulting career, I was hired by NY Daily News. I recommended a technical change that caused them to lose a large amount of Google traffic. Thankfully, we were able to reverse it quickly, so it was only a disaster for 48 hours. That drove home that our clients require us to always look over their shoulders to make sure they are implementing things correctly and the importance of trusting, but verifying. - Andrew Shotland, Local SEO Guide

5. Listen To Your Gut Instincts

It is important to listen to your gut! I joined a well-funded cybersecurity startup as CEO. The founder said they would let me run it, but as soon as we had traction, they wanted to be CEO. It was a job they were not suited for, but deep down, I knew that their ego would prevail. I now consider that experience a great move because it exposed me to technology and knowledge that has aided in our current success. - Tara Milburn, Ethical Swag

6. Set Realistic Goals For Yourself And Others

Failure and even success are not things that come from outside. I realized this when I put unrealistic goals in front of a new and inexperienced team. When they couldn't achieve those figures, I felt like I failed and was surrounded by a lot of negative thoughts. The next time, I reduced the figures and when they exceeded my expectation, I felt overwhelmed and experienced a great positive energy. - Raj Maddula, Global Squirrels

7. Put Yourself First

When I started my first business, I grew and scaled very quickly. Even though I was experiencing a lot of success, I also experienced a huge failure in neglecting my health. I overworked myself and didn't know when to call it quits for the day. I had severe burnout that forced me to reevaluate my time and priorities. The most important lesson I learned was if you're not first, you're last. - Lacey Abbacchi, Lacey Abbacchi

8. Delegate Correctly

I failed several times at delegating correctly. I speak fast; therefore, sometimes it is hard to understand me. When I once delegated a project to a manager and they did it incorrectly, I blamed myself for not delegating correctly. After this happened, I read the three best books about delegating I could find and made a cheat sheet of best practices and what needed to be done to delegate correctly. - Pedro Barboglio, Remote Team Solutions

9. Expand In Preparation For Growth

Recently, our company experienced explosive growth, which meant all hands on deck and working overtime. Looking back at this crazy period, I am thrilled we were able to meet the needs of our clients with limited resources. However, we learned we need to expand the team in preparation for future growth as well as transition to a better project management tool to improve efficiency further. - Maurice Harary, The Bid Lab

10. Clarify Roles Early

I partnered with someone I thought I could work with, but their efforts didn't match mine. I took charge as my partner seemed to adopt a more passive role. The stark contrast in their level of contribution and dedication, as they contentedly enjoyed the rewards without matching my efforts, led to a mounting sense of frustration and imbalance. This experience taught me to clarify roles early on to avoid future issues. - Yasmin Walter, KMD Books

11. Prioritize Customer Feedback In Research

One time I failed was when I launched a new product that didn't meet customer expectations. I learned the importance of market research and customer feedback in product development. It taught me to listen to customers' needs, iterate quickly and prioritize continuous improvement to deliver value and exceed expectations. - Henri Al Helaly, Skytex Aero

12. Understand That Not Everyone Will See Your Failures

Success is like an iceberg. The top 10% is the only part people see, the success. They don't realize that we are likely to fail 90% of the time as it gets buried underwater. I've launched dozens of businesses and have been very fortunate to have more than one become successful. Keep working hard, but move on when your gut tells you it's time. - Matthew Gallagher, Watch Gang

13. Learn What Information Is Important To Share

Our company ships bare root plants that are in a dormant state without blooms, foliage or greenery. When we first started online 21 years ago, we failed to clarify to our customers that our products were not finished products as they might expect from a retailer. We learned from that mistake and we are now focused on better informing our customers that we are a nursery grower, not a retailer. - Tammy Sons, Tn Nursery

14. Grow At The Right Pace

Beware of growing too fast! I was young and thought it was impressive to expand to different states at a fast pace. It sounded cool to say, “We are in seven to eight states,” but I didn’t have the manpower. I closed locations and scaled back and business has doubled every year. - Todd Price, Perimeter Roofing

15. Make Adaptable Plans

All the examples I can think of can be boiled down to the old adage, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." Any time the planning has fallen short, the risk of failure has been much higher. This has instilled in me a strong desire to ensure that planning is robust and adaptable to any situation that might arise. - Ty Allen, SocialClimb

16. Have The Courage To Face Failure

If you're not failing often, you probably aren't trying hard enough. Growth and success come from having the courage to face failure or the fear of even potentially failing. I have learned to see things going wrong not as a failure but as an opportunity to learn and progress. The quicker you deal with the blows, the quicker you get to the wins. - Marian Evans, Elevate BC Ltd

17. Focus On Needs Rather Than The Sale

When I first started out, I was a below-average presenter. I placed a huge emphasis on delivering high volumes of information. After a little success, I learned that the prospective client's wants and needs were much more important than what I was selling. Moving forward, I always begin by asking what is important to the client and what their needs are. - Stephen Nalley, Black Briar Advisors

18. Consider Failure As Part Of Your Job

As an entrepreneur, I believe it's part of my job to fail regularly. It can be launching a service that isn't quite ready or designing a process that doesn't create efficiencies. In 2022, I had quite a few failures all in the space of bad hires that weren't what the company needed. I hired for pain instead of hiring for the strategic growth mindset that we needed. - Jaime Taets, Keystone Group International

19. Invest Time Evaluating Cultural Fit

One time I failed was when I hastily hired team members without evaluating their cultural fit. It taught me the importance of taking time to assess candidates and ensure their alignment with our company values. Investing in thorough evaluation fosters a stronger team where growth and vision can be shared. - Pavel Stepanov, Virtudesk

20. Trust That Everything Happens For A Reason

It's easy for an entrepreneur to feel like a failure, and it happens very often when things don't go according to the plan. I recently felt like a failure when an offer to a VP of client success had a change of heart and rejected our offer after verbally accepting it initially. The lesson here is trust that things happen for a reason and there is a better person out there for the role. - Raquel Gomes, Stafi