One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization —
is “what happens after people make a mistake?”
Robert Sutton’s 12 Things Good Bosses Believe continues to provide insight for military leaders. Sutton explains that of his five books on business and leadership, #8 is the most important lesson:
Failure is inevitable, so the key to success is to be good at learning from it. The ability to capitalize on hard-won experience is a hallmark of the greatest organizations — the ones that are most adept at turning knowledge into action, that are best at developing and implementing creative ideas, that engage in evidence-based (rather than faith- or fear-based) management, and that are populated with the best bosses.
The military has a lineage of “no fail” leadership. There are clearly times when error, failure, or underperformance are unacceptable. (On this 70th anniversary, the D-Day landings at Normandy come to mind.)
There are also times (I’m sure you can recall from your own experience) when military leaders have exercised “no fail” leadership in situations that were slightly less decisive as D-Day. Unit meetings in garrison come to mind, where I’ve observed a commander routinely rip into the staff for minor (and often unavoidable) deviances from his perfect expectations. What is a person or team to do when they offer their best effort only to be cut down and reminded of their failings?
There are basically three responses to failure:
- Nobody notices. In the military, not identifying failure is worse than overreacting to it. Given the importance of our military mission, this typically does not happen in the areas of warfighting. However…don’t forget that “what doesn’t get checked often doesn’t get done.” It’s easy to assume that areas like counseling and property management are “good to go” and not identify a problem until critical system failure.
- The team gets crushed. In this case, the individual or team gives it their best but falls short, and the leader gives no allowance for not meeting the standard. Sometimes a leader has to intentionally do so to make a point, but leading without allowance for failure destroys creativity, morale, and learning.
- The leader uses failure to grow the team. Provided that failure wasn’t illegal, immoral, or unethical, the leader should use every opportunity to calmly walk the individual/team through a process to objectively capture the facts, identify successes as well as faults, and then extrapolate the appropriate lessons. This leader assumes that everyone is doing their best and wants to learn. And when the leader couples this process with positive feedback for the parts that went well, the result is immeasurably productive.
The effects of having a measured response and using failure to grow will be twofold:
- Productivity will increase. The team members will feel inspired to seek excellence, won’t be afraid of failure, and will be enabled to try new methods.
- Trickle down effect. Your subordinate leaders will follow the leader’s example and treat their teams in a similar way, which elevates the entire organization’s growth.
Questions for Leaders:
- What determines how you react to failure? Your mood? The severity of the failure? The frequency of failures?
- What is your threshold for what is an acceptable failure and what is not? Have you clarified your philosophy to your team?
- Do you know how your subordinates react to their team’s failures?
Leave your comments below and be sure to share your thoughts with your team.
“12 Things Good Bosses Believe” was published on the Harvard Business Review online leadership blog May 28, 2010.
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