Every leader makes mistakes. Fortunately, there is a lesson to be learned from every failure.
When I was a first-time entrepreneur, I made one of the biggest mistakes a leader can make: I tried to juggle too many balls at once.
This was nearly two decades ago during the first few years of growing my startup. Instead of giving 100% of my attention to my company like I should have, I tried to balance multiple launching projects at once—wasting both my time and energy on products and services that led me nowhere. Fast-forward to today, and I know better. Rather than chase after every small task, I save my brain for the big stuff.
One of the hardest things to do in your career is to learn from your failures. And it can be particularly difficult for leaders to fess up to their failures and address them. While failing at something at work may seem like the end of the world, I believe it’s essential for growing and excelling at your job.
Rebounding from your failures allows you to learn from your mistakes and develop a self-starter attitude to navigate challenges. Here are four steps you can take to be a self-starter, learn from your mistakes, and move forward from failure.
Reflect on your mindset
“The mistakes leaders make won’t always result in happy accidents,” writes Dylan Taylor for Newsweek. “But what they almost always can result in is real, teachable moments.”
It took me many years to see my mistakes within a positive framework. But I eventually realized that rather than missteps branding me as inept, they allowed me to make positive changes that ended up making a real difference in my business. Of course, I had to adjust to this new way of thinking.
Leaders who make mistakes can often feel like all eyes are on them. But it is within your power to stop and reflect, to see how adapting to failure can lead to resilience. Changing your perspective is essential to seeing mistakes as a stepping stone rather than a breaking point.
Identify lessons that can be learned
Failure breeds humility. When the ground beneath us grows shaky, we’re forced to reach for a fresh start. When we can recognize that we don’t know everything, it means we’re intellectually flexible and open to learning.
After spending years on the wrong ideas, I shifted gears and focused wholly on my form-building company. Because of this experience, I learned that growing a successful business would mean constant reinvention. I couldn’t stay stagnant. I had to constantly question whether there was a better way of doing things.
“Leaders will make mistakes,” writes Taylor. “Some of these mistakes will be minor, and some will be major. Regardless of the severity, all mistakes can provide learning opportunities if we let them.”
Admit your mistakes to your team
Recognizing your failures is an opportunity to convey to employees that they can have setbacks, learn from them, and overcome them as well. Doing so will also position you as a leader people can trust. Research from Deloitte notes that those who can embrace their errors display traits like honesty, integrity, and grace.
Openly discussing mistakes with your team is a learning opportunity where everyone can feel free to share their own experiences about their shortcomings. That’s why it’s important for me to readily admit whenever I’ve made poor choices—because it shows accountability. And it enables others to do the same.
Covering up our mistakes as leaders serves only to create an unbalanced culture. Many companies claim to be supportive learning organizations, but many don’t acknowledge the negative impact of overlooking errors.
Engage proactively with your failure
Sometimes it takes a serious mistake to make us reflect on our own growth and the direction we’re heading in.
In his insightful story for Fast Company, John Hood explains how cultivating a proactive mindset allows teams to be more creative because they don’t define failure as something to fear. “When a leader creates these environments, failure isn’t a barrier to progress—it is a step in the iterative process toward innovation,” he writes.
By learning to use your mistakes to propel you in a positive direction, you can teach others that they can miss the mark and still not be defeated.
“Building this mentality is one of the key components of growing as a leader,” writes Hood. “When we reorient our mindsets to engage proactively with failures, we also give ourselves a framework to pick apart our successes and develop them into even better places.”
Whether you’re struggling to forgive yourself for minor or major mistakes, know that they all impact your professional trajectory—but that you have the power to direct this trajectory.
Failure will always be an inevitable part of being a leader and being a human. What matters most is how you learn from setbacks, and how you allow yourself to embrace an ample dose of grace along the way.