Oops, I failed!
How do you
feel when you hear the term “fail” or “failure”? Coyote, the famous character
from the animated series “The Road Runner Show,” failed most of the time. The
story revolves around the two main characters Coyote, and the Road Runner where
Coyote repeatedly attempts to catch the Road Runner, but he continues to fail.
However, he never stopped chasing the goal despite failures. He is a very
educated and creative character who manages to invent a new way every time, yet
he fails. One of the reasons why Coyote failed is his inability to realize his
mistakes and weakness.
The
question is, how many people accept in a corporate world that they failed? What
is the tolerance level we have for people who failed? An individual can be
successful on the performance front; however, they fall on the softer yet
important aspect. Today, I am celebrating my failures, and what I have learned
from my mistakes.
Most of the
people managers at mid-level could not move to the next level because either
they are scared of failures, not prepared for failures, or don’t realize what
it takes to move upwards. During my journey, I realized that many leadership
programs talk about what will make you successful rather than what will humiliate
you, crush or break you. There are five possible reasons why most mid-level
managers or people like me have failed at some point of time in their
career:
- Trying
to do it all yourself (Do it all yourself): One of my bosses once said, “Life
is beyond individual brilliance, and he is right.” The most apparent
mistake by perfectionists or people who want things quickly is trying to
do everything themselves, which impacts them in the long run. The right
team structure is one of the ways to avoid such a situation.
- King
without troops: Wars are won by
armies (troops), not the crowd. A troop of one thousand people is better
than a crowd of ten thousand people. The crowd can be emotionally
connected; however, it won’t hold enemies for a long time. The leaders are
either unable to hire strong second-line or don’t know what to hire, due
to which they fail. The other important element is to hire more competent
people who can do things better than you; otherwise, everything will come
on you, which is bound to fail.
- No
devolution of power: One of the common
mistakes by a leader is they don’t delegate the authority or power to the
chain, which delays in decision making, bureaucratic system and everyone
is playing a role one level below. This is the biggest obstacle in
succession planning because the team is mentally not ready or hesitant to
make decisions. A good leader empowers their teams which lifts individual,
function, and the organization.
- A frog
in the well: At times, leaders
don’t have an outside-in view because they have not ventured out of the
well (organization operations) to see how vast the outer world thinks. In
such a scenario, a person may stagnate at a particular job or a role and
won’t grow beyond time. The outside view gives you a fresh perspective,
helps build progressive policies or measures, and most importantly, builds
an external persona, which is very important for any leader.
- Financial
acumen: Imagine what will
happen when a salesperson sells a product without knowing your cost of
production or rock bottom price? They might end up selling at a loss or
not able to take any strategic decision. The leaders need to have a
holistic business overview and understanding to get the respect from their
peers, internal and external stakeholders.
We all have
to taste failures many times, and we need to remember that success won’t come
so easily. Afterall, even the cartoon character Coyote took 26 episodes to
catch The Road Runner. You don’t need to be afraid of failures, and most
importantly, you need to let others step in to help you. Future managers need
to work on all the above elements at the right time to avoid saying, “Oops, I
failed!” This is my story. Are there any places where you as a leader failed?
Article
Source: https://www.peoplematters.in/blog/leadership/oops-i-failed-lessons-on-facing-failure-from-a-corporate-leader-31525
Originally written for PeopleMatters.
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