Leaders Are Not Perfect: They Can and Do Make Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes - the key issue is how we deal with them.

US author and speaker John C Maxwell has stated:

‘A person must be big enough to admit his or her mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.’

The same goes for leaders - and in a recent article, internationally renowned HR expert Drew Stevens PhD says that taking ownership of your mistakes is the most essential quality of any leader.

Of course, no leader seeks out or welcomes their mistakes, he says, but if and when they do occur, good leaders can rise to the challenge and reinvent themselves and their organisations.

By taking responsibility and building confidence and trust with their followers - rather than blaming fate, the economy, politics or their customers - good leaders can maintain a sense of control over the situation.

The idea that ‘failure is not an option’ should not instil fear in a true leader.

History is littered with great achievers and inventers who withstood many failures along the way.

Take Thomas Edison, for example, who famously failed over a thousand times before successfully inventing the light bulb.

Or Christopher Columbus who took what he thought was the wrong route and discovered America!

Making mistakes is human - and the answer according to Stevens, is simply to admit the problem and move on.

Or, he says, if you behave badly - apologise and move on.

When a leader acknowledges his or her mistakes and also learns from them, he or she also creates a more collaborative learning environment and a culture of transparency - something both present and future leaders can learn from.

Author and leadership expert Glenn Llopis, writing recently in Forbes magazine, admits many leaders allow their egos or hidden agendas to get in the way of doing what is best for their employees and organisations.

Llopis maintains good leaders must make it their personal responsibility to ensure problems become opportunities - and solutions are readily found - so that the organisation never loses its momentum.

A good leader will always admit that the collective insight they gained from bad decisions also taught them vital lessons on how to do better next time.

And to be a really effective leader, it is important to recognise both the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of your successes and your failures.

Taking a ‘360-degree’ approach can give a broader understanding of how and why we can fail - and also allows us to see things more clearly –often providing us with previously unseen or unheeded, perspectives.

Making mistakes is an important part of the leadership journey - but by taking time and pacing ourselves, we can also limit our mistakes.

Of course, this is not to suggest that making mistakes is a desirable outcome.

It is just that if they do occur, a good leader should take the time to self-evaluate and learn from them.

The best way to stay ahead of the game in your role as leader says Llopis, is to build a strong foundation within your organisation of both people and resources, and to admit it when you do make mistakes.

This Llopis contends, earns a leader respect; strengthens the team by showing a leader is human; allows a leader to ‘lead by example’ (i.e. they expect their team members to do the same) and finally, builds a culture of trust.