The most exceptional business leaders use failure to fuel their greatness. Case in point: Elon Musk, who has discovered that the only way to learn how to launch a rocket into orbit faster and more efficiently is by literally blowing it up. His SpaceX team not only accepts failure, but actually expects it. This is how businesses develop an understanding of how to transcend their limits and expectations along the road to achieving success.
When my staffing company Gravy Work launched in 2018, it was a rocky start. The hospitality customers that we were serving didn’t really care so much about the technology we offered at all. Rather, they cared more about the quality of the person who was reporting for duty, that they had the information that they needed and were appropriately dressed. Our development team learned from the product’s design flaws, but the lessons behind failure don’t just apply to technology. They’re equally relevant to workflows, processes and team collaboration meetings.
Leadership was especially tested during the pandemic when organizations across all sectors of the economy and industries had to learn how to operate in a vacuum. Some projects that were put in place before COVID-19 turned everything sideways failed. I don’t know any business leaders or colleagues of mine who understood how to navigate those uncertain waters.
So the only way leaders learned how to operate in a pandemic was to experience those failures and take corrective action. Ultimately, leaders and their teams have to take risks. Otherwise, they’ll forever be mired in analysis paralysis. The pandemic has taught us all that there’s something to be learned from the unknown.
Related Articles:
Applying Burning Man principals to corporate leadership
Leading without authority allows for nimble management