Normalizing “The F-Word”—How To Learn From Failure

“Expect to fail—and fail often—until you arrive at a different future, a different outcome.”

We’re quick to celebrate success, but failure is (often) viewed as embarrassing, troublesome, and a no-no. 

That said, stuff-ups are inevitable in the workplace. Learning from them is what makes a leader or organization truly exceptional, so they should be leveraged as opportunities for growth.

Leaders and companies that don’t treat “failure” as taboo have a clear advantage over those that do. In my experience:

• They are generally more creative. Failing to achieve a certain goal one way requires outside-the-box thinking to come up with a novel solution. Pursuing that unfamiliar strategy takes courage, and that’s frequently a key driver of innovation.
• They build resilience. Each time you bounce back from failure as a leader, the more prepared you are for unexpected setbacks in the future. Research shows that resilient companies are less financially volatile, show higher sales growth, and have greater chances of long-term survival.
• They are more psychologically “safe.” A leader who can not just own, share, and learn from their failures is a strong role model for a whole organization. People feel more comfortable acknowledging and reflecting on their own mistakes in a climate of honesty and openness, which leads to higher overall performance.

The bottom line is that failure has countless upsides when we can accept, acknowledge, and even share those experiences with others. 

If the thought of that makes you cringe, here are three things you can do to turn your next swing-and-miss into value for your business. 

Suspend Your Ego

It’s easy to be confident when you’re on top. You’re less likely to second-guess your judgment—until it all goes south, and then your ego can take a huge, painful bruising. 

I have met many leaders who believe that keeping your failures to yourself is the best way to go, whether to maintain the illusion of control or avoid ‘losing face’ in front of ‘subordinates’. 

Missed learning and teaching opportunities are the only outcomes of this. While it takes bravery to acknowledge your mistakes, suspending your ego is the only way your whole team can grow from them.

Suspending your ego is about putting others’ needs before your own—when you admit a stuff-up, you give others a chance to learn vicariously and contribute their insights. Think about how others might gain from the educational value of this experience and even add to it, and suspend your ego.

Reflect On Your Failure

Reflection is one of the best ways to learn from failures. It helps you feel less stressed (and more self-accepting) about the experience while encouraging you to practice more careful decision-making in future stressful situations. 

You can also unpack practical insights about where you went wrong and avoid those pitfalls in the future—but that’s obvious!

Here are a few good reflection prompts to try:

• What makes you view this experience as a failure?
• How does thinking about this failure make you feel?
• Which of your actions could have contributed to this failure? What steps did you *not* take that could have prevented it from happening?
• What would you tell a colleague or peer if they were in your situation now?

Share Your Failures

If you want to build trust and encourage your co-workers to learn with you, share your failures with them. Not just your failures but your reflections, too. 

Showing vulnerability this way will invite your teammates to feel closer to you—it’s a strong trust-builder. They will probably be more likely to share their past failures and reflections, which can help you build a strong climate of openness and honesty in your company.

That’s another huge step toward leading with Professional Closeness.

— Govert

1. I share regular leadership and coaching tips, articles, and news on my LinkedIn every few days. Send me a DM!
2. Want to start leading with Professional Closeness? Download my book The Power of Professional Closeness here.

Govert van Sandwijk is a seasoned international strategy facilitator, leadership development consultant, author, and executive coach who has delivered high-impact business, people management, and leadership development programs to over 5000 leaders across 40 countries. His first book, The Power of Professional Closeness, is an Amazon #1 Bestseller and shares the strategies that have made his approach so successful. Download Helping Leaders Navigate, his free guide to using professional closeness to improve your life and organization at https://timetogrowglobal.com.