Four Dos in Dealing with Failure

In the emotional upheaval surrounding significant failure, it helps to have specific things to do in order to learn and grow from the experience. We worked with one CEO—let’s call him Joe—who failed in a highly public and spectacular manner. He promised results that he did not deliver. The media focused on him extensively and dissected his leadership, decisions, and style; his board finally fired him. Joe, however, was a bright, talented leader. He had gone through many of the passages, learned from them, and matured as a leader. There was no reason to suspect that he wouldn’t do well as CEO, except for the fact that he had never really failed in a major way.

Although Joe was understandably upset by the public nature of his ouster, he resolved to get back in the game. Before doing so, he carefully analyzed, thought about, and discussed what had gone wrong. He hired a personal coach to help him deal with the issues that the whole episode had raised, including his overconfidence (which the media claimed had hurt the company on a number of fronts). It took a while, but Joe is now the CEO of a midsize software company that is performing well, and his rebound from failure was due, in part, to the regimen he followed in the wake of his dismissal.

When you fail, you should also consider taking the following four steps:

Step 1. Examine your decisions that catalyzed the failure. More specifically, look at your attitudes, as well as your actions, that may have caused a loss, poor result, or negative outcome. Even if an attitude or action wasn’t the main cause, consider how it may have influenced the outcome of events. Ask yourself why you decided what you decided. Were you afraid of taking a risk? Were you taking too much of one? Were you too stubborn and didn’t listen to your team’s advice? Which of your personality derailers (see Why CEOs Fail, by David Dotlich and Peter Cairo) may have occurred under stress and contributed to your failure?

Step 2. Talk to your boss, a coach, or some other trusted adviser about this incident. Many people cannot discuss their failures. Some leaders have come to believe that “failure is not an option” and “discussing failure is not an option either.” This type of swagger is not leadership; it is denial. Discussing how things went wrong is painful, and it requires courage to expose your vulnerabilities. It’s even more painful because you’re talking to someone you respect and trust; you don’t want that person to think less of you. These conversations are important, though, because they allow you to obtain feedback, examine your assumptions, test your hypotheses, and come to terms with yourself and your role in failing. It can be useful to reflect on your failure by yourself, but you also need the benefit of an outside perspective. It’s not so much that other people will give you practical advice about how to avoid this failure in the future (though that might occur) but that they can offer you insight about who you are as a leader and how you need to develop. They may note that your arrogance or indecisiveness contributed to the failure or that you are relying too heavily on your technical insights and not developing your emotional intelligence. Leaders often take these conversations to heart. They’re motivated by their failure and open to learning about themselves as leaders, perhaps for the first time in years. Especially for highly successful people, failure offers teachable moments because it’s such a surprising experience. Conversations with wise mentors and coaches help people capitalize on these teachable moments.

Following a career setback, I had very clear goals in the short, medium, and long term that I was working toward, and I really simplified my life to focus on achieving those goals. There were goals in my personal life, my family life, my economic life, and my business. I literally sat down with a piece of paper and worked through all of that and decided this is the way I’m going to lead my life and this is what’s important; this is what’s not important. It was like a second birth almost.

Ray Viault, vice chairman, General Mills

Step 3. Reflect on what you might do differently in the future. After you’ve analyzed why you did what you did and talked about it, the next step is to reflect on how you might respond in a more effective way when facing a similar situation in the future. Again, don’t just think in business or strategic terms. Consider what you’ve learned from this particular failure that will serve you well in other positions and when you are faced with other decisions. Realistically, you may never again find yourself in exactly the same situation in which you experienced significant failure. You will, however, find yourself in many situations where the learning from this failure will come in handy.

For instance, many top executives who go through this passage have been overly controlling. Typically, they were under intense pressure and were convinced that if they worked hard enough and relied on their expertise, they could pull their team or business through a difficult challenge. Just as typically, they discover, on reflection, that this was the mistake that caused or contributed to the failure. They realize that if they’re going to grow as leaders, they need to trust their teams, be honest with them, and ask for their help. No doubt they will encounter different types of problems in the future when a team-based solution is critical, and they will have the maturity to include their team rather than shoulder the entire burden of decision making themselves.

To help you reflect on what you’ve learned from your failure, ask yourself the following questions:

If you encountered exactly the same failure-related situation in the future, what would you do differently?

To do something differently, what would have to change inside you? Would you have to adopt new values, become more flexible, change your traditional approach in some way?

What did you learn about yourself from the failure? Did you discover that you were stubbornly set in your ways or too obsessed with results, or that you had to spend more time and energy developing people rather than businesses?

Step 4. Summon the energy to persevere. Failure is enervating, but the leaders who move forward are the ones who manage to summon the energy necessary to keep at it. Failure leaves you feeling defeated, but great leaders obtain the psychological resiliency that comes with this passage. There’s no secret to acquiring this resiliency. It’s simply a matter of digging deep inside yourself and deciding you’re not going to be defeated, at least not in the long term. Focus on the job that needs to be done, the specific tasks that you’re best qualified to accomplish. Discipline your thinking to avoid dwelling on your mistakes or the mistakes of others. Instead, force yourself to go after new goals with the same drive and determination you displayed before the failure. If this sounds like we’re suggesting that you give yourself a pep talk, you’re right. Great leaders have tremendous self-motivation and are adept at re-energizing themselves after they’ve been knocked down. What you’ll learn from this passage is that if you summon this energy, you’ll persist long enough to receive another opportunity to prove yourself.