Outgrowing the Failure - A Coaching Story of a Sr. Leader

One of my coaching clients, A Sr. Leader in IT, is known for his crisis management skills. His impressive track record of turning around crisis projects into successful projects continued to amaze his peers, and he got entrusted to handle a strategic engagement. He was assigned to lead a merger of a startup, which was critical to the company's future success. He worked day and night tirelessly for the past many months, putting all his effort and expertise into the project. However, despite his best efforts, he fell short of expectations and was disengaged from the assignment. My client was shocked and devastated as he had never experienced failure of this magnitude, and the feeling of disappointment and defeat overwhelmed him. He felt he had let down his team, company, and himself. He was embarrassed and didn't know how to face his colleagues and superiors, and he approached me to help him to get out of this mental state.?

When faced with failure, his non-acceptance and first reaction are to look outside to direct the blame. Many internal voices took a violent shape inside his mind, and to avoid the pain, he was looking outward to release the pain through internal criticism/external judgments.??His inner critic is very strong and he is suffering due to highlighted level of the same.

My client developed a hyper-achiever mentality since childhood due to family conditioning and a deep desire to succeed.???

His core belief is that failure is not acceptable.??

Nothing wrong with this thought process, but this is a classic case of setting up very high standards for oneself based on fear and relentlessly staying on top in pursuit of this.??

Many dont know how to tame this behavior. They get caught up in the Drama level rather than focusing on the Vision level when they hit adversity

"Ladder of Focus" is an excellent coaching tool for improving awareness when caught up in too much Drama.?? As a Coach, I arrest the unrest in these cases to make my coaching clients see the bigger perspective.

Most of the time, we focused on how to take a balanced approach to this event rather than heavy self-judgments/environmental judgments. It is easy to slip through a low road. But keeping the high road is critical to navigating such a life crisis.?

After a few coaching sessions, his mindset about this incident started shifting.

Major shifts include

• It is not a personal vendetta.
• Also, his awareness to accept the point that "Not having all the skills to succeed when you take up a new role for the first time is Acceptable."??
• An important aspect is the quick learnability from this incident.?

As he moved up the ladder of focus,?

• He understood many external variables in this decision.
• The support and trust he got from his leadership throughout were immense.??
• It is ok for an organization to make a change for the larger good of the organization.
• The situation could have a more significant impact and penalties.
• If he does not balance his health with the time commitment required by the initiative, it will create devastating results for both.

The most vital out of these things, it ok to "not to succeed" in every endeavor in life, as failure is part of life and unavoidable.??What is critical is to outgrow the failure and improve the learnings "Quickly."

When I asked him what kind of role model he would like to become for his children between the options,??

??? Succeed in every goal

??? Handle failures and grow.?

He chose Option??? and related to his dad when I asked why. His dad went through many failures, still living a meaningful life.

As a role model for his kids, this is one thing he would want to leave them with.?

After his experience, he learned that it is through our failures and mistakes that we grow and become better versions of ourselves.? He also learned to be more resilient and to embrace failure as a learning ??opportunity. He is now back in emotional energies?? and recovering from physical health?? setbacks.??

His wife acknowledged that without coaching, knowing his personality would have taken a toll on him.

He also knew that failure could be a powerful motivator and that it could lead to growth and self-improvement. With this newfound perspective??, he is becoming stronger ?? and more determined than ever.??