The six best lessons that you can only learn from your worst leadership disasters
Leadership is all about lessons. Every encounter can provide a teachable moment as well as an opportunity to learn something new. Clearly, whilst leadership competence and capability are evidence of success, more than failure, it is in fact failure that defines leadership, not success.
Ultimately, it is when those in leadership deconstruct their failures and identify key learning points, that they demonstrate adaptability, durability and resilience. None of these critical characteristics can be honed until the weight bearing capacity of leadership has been tested to destruction. That is why disaster and specifically, what happens when leadership emerges from it, is one of the best ways to assess leadership fitness.
With the context set, summarised below are the six best lessons that you can only learn from your worst leadership disasters.
1. Who is going to stick around and help you rebuild?
One of the truisms of leadership is that you only discover your character and that of others, amid crisis and catastrophe. At the slightest sign of disaster, some will resort to the proverbial ‘Monday morning quarterbacking’, whilst others will deny any knowledge of decisions that they were always privy to. Some will even tactically position themselves to see how they might profit from your misfortune. The point to note here is that you will quickly be able to identify those who you can trust and those you cannot. Disaster has a way of revealing character like nothing else can.
2. What is your chin made of?
Keep in mind that leadership is a demonstration not a declaration. Therefore, it must be tested to determine whether it is fit for purpose. Sometimes a sustained examination of leadership will quickly expose a ‘glass jaw’ and reveal the imbalance of style over substance. Notwithstanding, reality checks are nutritious for leadership because they should lead to sober reflection, a more realistic appraisal of capabilities and a targeted focus on areas for improvement. Sometimes, the best service that can be performed for leadership is to re-set baselines, not raise expectations.
3. Are you willing to take a step down?
There are occasions when it becomes clear that a person assigned for a leadership role has been promoted well beyond their capability. This becomes apparent by their failure to achieve agreed objectives or lack of situational competence. In such circumstances, demotion and tutelage under another is the only remedy. As humiliating as that may seem, it can be a defining moment for those in leadership. That is because submission is an act of humility and humility is a essential characteristic of leadership.
4. Do you have a price?
When leadership shows cowardice in the face of challenge, abandons its core principles or compromises values, it essentially becomes delinquent. Under such circumstances there is almost no way back. Trust quickly ebbs away, whilst the social currency of its influence, steadily devalues. Yet, even in this bleak scenario there is an important lesson to learn, which is whether those in leadership truly own the values that they espouse. If they do not, then there is a serious question to be answered as to whether that represents a failure on the part of those in leadership or those who placed them there.
5. What are you prepared to give up?
Sacrifice is an important part of leadership and for some, it may cost them everything. The ‘cost’ of leadership should never be understated as it does not always have a ceiling. Nonetheless, surveying the scope, scale and span of personal and professional costs can often be the best time to weigh up whether they are ultimately worth the sacrifice. For some, those costs may simply prove too great and may cause them to consider whether the same or similar goals can be achieved through different methods. For others, the costs are far less important than the pursuit of their desired outcome.
6. How much does your reputation matter to you?
Reputations are powerful constructs. Most people would do almost anything to defend their reputation as it can open doors on the one hand and close them on the other. But what happens if your reputation has taken a significant hit, not necessarily due to a character failing, but rather due to a misjudgement that led to a failure to deliver on a high profile agenda? How you respond when people are laughing at you, as your name becomes a byword for ridicule and incompetence, will reveal the kind of person you are. Faced with this challenge, do you stick to your principles, re-group and go again or rush to salvage whatever may be left of your reputation?
In previous blogs, I have highlighted the fact that little of anything character forming can ever be learnt from success. Rather, the determinants of character are demonstrated following repeat visits to the drawing board, in moments of dejection and abandonment. The problem is that so often, those in leadership are only too willing to put as much distance between themselves and their disasters as they possibly can. By so doing, they unwittingly deprive themselves of the valuable lessons upon which the foundations of leadership character are built.
