Leading During Tough Times

During my professional development, it has been said that failure is a prerequisite for growth – as if failing alone will make you a successful leader. That is not exactly true in some cases. Let’s examine this a little more closely.

·        In my opinion, a great leader learns how to overcome failures by capitalizing on mistakes and turning them into opportunities such as debriefing with the team to learn from a failure or designing a campaign to follow up an unfavorable scenario.

Leadership matters when things go wrong, and that happens quite often when you’re a CEO or in a leadership position. Naturally, our bodies go into defense mode when things go south…great leaders have this innate ability to toss that aside, take ownership, learn from their mistakes, and go into a solution focused mindset right away. Luckily for you, you can build this skill by strengthening your communications with your team and adopting a positive attitude towards failure. That, in turn, will lower your defenses, allowing you to reach for creativity and resilience in the face of things going terribly wrong.

Here’s how successful leaders can capitalize on their mistakes.

Taking risks

We have all heard the analogy, “if you don’t want to fail, then don’t take a risk but if you don’t take a risk, you’re going to fail” – both at business and with life. This is true and it’s really a catch-22, but you have to decide what type of leader you are going to be.

Yes, many leaders want to play it safe. Perhaps the reward is not that tempting, and the risks are too many/high to step out of their comfort zone. Regardless of the situation, you know there’s going to be some serious planning before you decide to move forward, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t get rid of that little margin of error that may ruin your whole business plan. You MUST be comfortable with that or it will keep you from taking the leap of faith!

Keep this in mind – with decisions you’ll always win something and lose something. And no plan or decision is perfect…if you wait for the perfect plan or for all of the information to make a perfect decision, your competition will pass you by.

So, what do you do? It’s up to you really…I like to take risks. If you do to, be sure to prepare yourself for counteraction in case things go wrong. In other words, be prepared to own it, walk those who show counteraction through your decision making process/due diligence, as well as your intentions. There’s nothing wrong with being preventative, just make sure you’re not spending all your resources at once. Energy is limited, seize it.

Keep Yourself Accountable

Harry Truman said it best – “the buck stops here” and, as a leader, you own the outcomes of the decisions that you make.

Sure, there will be some scenarios where you can easily place the blame on someone else or divert it towards an external variable that you couldn’t foresee. While it’s tempting, and you may feel a huge relief for not being the one who messed up everything, you’ll find yourself in a situation that stagnates and leads you nowhere; a lose-lose type of situation.

 If You Make a Mistake, Own It

If someone on your team has clearly made a mistake, ask the right questions to really solve the problem while acknowledging what happened on a deeper level. Was it a communication problem? A misunderstanding? Make yourself accountable and emphasize how mistakes are bound to happen.

Note: When you take accountability, you lead by example. Your employees will learn from this and, they too, will hold themselves accountable for their decisions.

Stay True to Your Core Values

While results and reaching your business goals is always important, you are going to find yourself in situations where you may consider compromising the same values that have successfully guided you during your career in order to reach a favorable goal or outcome. When this occurs, remember that keeping yourself true to your values – and those which are also core values of your work team – has a tremendously positive effect on you as well as on the morale and motivation of your team.

There are things that are non-negotiable, and your values are your moral compass – so use them and don’t get lost. If you’ve made a mistake and you know where you’re going, there’s a chance you can make it right. Stay true to who you are and what got you where you are!

Be Vulnerable

Admitting your mistakes leaves room for improvement. You will soon find support and a heightened sense of fellowship among your team.

Let’s be clear here…being vulnerable is NOT the same as being weak; so stop worrying about being perceived as a less authoritative leader and start thinking about how you can positively influence your team by showing more vulnerable aspects of yourself. Having enough confidence to admit a mistake from time to time will earn the respect of your team while building trust and transparency. Let me say that again because it is CRITICAL…” Having enough confidence to admit a mistake from time to time will earn the respect of your team while building trust and transparency”!

Note: You don’t have to be vulnerable all the time. Make sure to manage where, when and with what aspects of yourself you’re revealing. Your goal is to build trust and create rapport. There are still things you can and should keep to yourself. Choose your spots and maximize your impact.

Becoming a Successful Leader

One thing you should always keep in mind is that whatever led you to your current mistake is already done, you’ve already invested time, money and other resources, so your safest bet is to make the most of it.

Lastly, if you are going through a tough time, it’s important to lean on others for support, love, wisdom, and encouragement. Don’t go through it alone!