Why failure is what makes good leaders great

04:00


Today we live in a society where failure is not an option. We look down on those who do not succeed, and berate ourselves when we are defeated. We shy away from risky behaviour for fear of not succeeding and settle for lives of mediocrity in order to avoid being associated with that dreaded word “failure”.


What we seem to forget is that failure is essential to success. It forces you to re-evaluate and try new things. 

Failure is especially important in regards to leadership. There are many good leaders in the world, but what separates them from great leaders is how they react to failure. Great leaders are not those who do not fail, but those who are accountable for their actions and learn from their failures. Many of the great leaders that we admire today have failed dismally in the past, but by learning from their mistakes, managed to eventually succeed. Below are some examples:
“Everyone falls down. Getting back up is how you learn how to walk.”
When Walt Disney was first starting out, he was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas” and his first animation company went bankrupt within one year. His ideas were ridiculed and rejected, yet he learned from every setback. He eventually found success and today Disney's films are known and adored by people around the world.


“Failure is simply an opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” 
When Henry Ford first started out in the automobile industry, his first two companies went out of business within a couple of years. Eventually the Ford Motor Company was established and its innovative assembly line production meant that his cars were inexpensive and well made. His company still remains one of the largest car companies in the world today.


“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
When he was younger, Bill Gates started his first company “traf-o-data” with Paul Allen. Unfortunately, their product failed, but this experience was crucial in preparing them for the start up of Microsoft a few years later. Now, Microsoft is the largest personal computer software company and Bill Gates is one of the most successful businessmen in the world.
So don’t be afraid of failure. Instead embrace it, evaluate it and learn from it. For it is only by doing so that good leaders become great.

 You can read more about how failure and leadership are related here:
   5 things failure teaches you about leadership
   How great leaders triumph over failure

 Image sources
http://thinksquad.tumblr.com/image/70013186971
http://todayinirishhistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/henry_ford_with_the_model_t.jpg
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Walt_Disney/Gallery?file=Walt_disney.jpg

Share This Story

Tags: ,
Unknown

You Might Also Like

3 comments

  1. Anonymous31 May 2014 at 22:49

    All of these people seem to justify failure as a sort of learning curve because they eventually achieved huge successes, but what if you never succeed? Can you justify failure still, simply because you tried? Was there still something to gain from the failure? Do you believe, as Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird says, that "Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,"? Or is this just pointless idealism?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown2 June 2014 at 04:50

      I believe that failure can still be justified even if you never succeed. It’s not necessarily about the act of failing itself, but the lessons you learn from the experience and your ability to persevere. In a perfect world, everyone who was able to do this would eventually succeed, but sometimes the odds are stacked against you and success is an impossibility.

      However, some of the battles most worth fighting are those which are the hardest to win. It can take several lifetimes and numerous efforts by hundreds of people all over the world before any real change is affected. Take for example the hundreds of years it has taken for us to gain any semblance of equality, which even today isn’t perfect. We have heard so many stories of great leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B. Anthony who may not have succeeded overall, but made some progress towards winning this fight. There are bound to be many more great people who fought for their beliefs who history has forgotten and while their individual actions were unsuccessful, were they unimportant? I don’t believe so.

      Instead what I believe is that a fight that you are bound to lose, but deeply believe in, is still worth fighting. This quote from David Mitchell’s ‘Cloud Atlas’ sums it up well:

      “My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”

      Delete
  2. Anonymous2 June 2014 at 03:14

    I think the idea that 'failure is ok as long as you learn from it' is really interesting. I would argue that it isn’t technically failure as long as you learn from it and come back stronger. Yes, you may have failed at your ultimate goal of starting a company or winning a race, but as long as you put in to practice what you learnt form that failure, you have succeeded in many other things. You have succeeded in thinking critically about what went wrong. You have succeeding in self-reflection. You have succeeded in resilience. The list could go on. You might never succeed in your ultimate goal but still be a success.

    Martin Luther King Jr wanted not only to end the legal segregation, but for everyone to be treated based on their character and not their skin. He wanted much more than the end to segregation, he wanted true equality. I don’t believe that we have achieved true equality today, yet I would not say that Martin Luther King Jr failed.

    I think that this is important to remember. In every failure lies success; you just have to know where to find it.

    ReplyDelete

My Blog List