The Importance of Learning from Failure

I recently met with a young nurse leader who was heartbroken over her lack of success in her first leadership role.  She had made many mistakes because of a lack of we preparation that was not totally her responsibility.  She had been moved too rapidly into a position that she was not ready for.   I tried to help here see the upside of the experience but it was soon for her to try to process it.  I worked with her on some strategies to help gain resiliency but I also realized that this would be challenging.  My own research with young leaders that fear of failure is the number 1 reason why Generation Y nurses are reluctant about stepping into leadership roles.

When I spoke with her, I realized that we don’t prepare our leaders for the possibility of failure nor do we have talk about it can actually be transformative. Yet, every successful nurse leader has had the experience of not being selected for a coveted position, failing to achieve a goal, making a bad judgement call or possibly being fired or asked to step down from a position.  I was fortunate in my early career to have some leader mentors that I could confide in without any fear of being judged.  I worked with one Chief Nursing Officer who was remarkable in her ability to identify the upside of any leadership mistake that I made.

While failure is inevitable we don’t publicly discuss it.  Yet, it is part of the leadership experience.  We celebrate our successes and most of our nursing journal articles focus on what is working in organizations.  I just assumed recently assumed editorship of a journal and am still waiting to see the first article on what went wrong with an initiative. If you never fail, you probably are not taking risks that will lead to your personal growth or innovation in your organization.  Reflection is important after failure to grow and learn from the experience.  Too often, leaders get into the blame game when there is failure rather than admit their role in what happened.  Some key questions to ask include:

• What happened and why?
• What key signs did I miss leading up to the failure?
• What were the consequences of what happened here?
• What did I learn as a leader from this situation?
• How will I apply any lessons learned in the future?

Our failures can be some of our best teachers if we pay attention and learn from them.  Fredrich Nietzsche once observed that “that which does not kill us makes us stronger”.  This is wise advice for leaders as they learn and grow from both their successes and failures.

Read to Lead

Learn from Failure  Harvard Business Review – Amy Edmondson

Fralic, M.A. (2011). Thoughts on Failure: Three questions to Ask.  Nurse Leader (9)5, 60

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