Belmont University

Leadership and Failure

Over the years I have become more comfortable using my missteps and failures as lessons and examples for my students. Of course, they seem to love to hear the success stories. But they need to learn that hardship, challenge and failure all teach us important lessons about our business, our customers, and ourselves.

Bill Hobbs sent along a good post from The Executive Update that speaks to learning from failure.

[W]e tend to live in an avoidance society, where failure is often overlooked or ignored and we only focus on successes. That’s a mistake. Leadership comes from learning lessons taught by failure. People rebound from failure because they choose to learn from their mistakes.
Well said.

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Comments

I fully agree. The lessons of failure often teach us more than successes. There is an overcoming of hardships that builds character and focus. However, these traits are more general life lessons and not necessarily leadership lessons. One can just as easily learn these lessons as a follower as they can a leader. So, why is thought to be a leadership characteristic?

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