We all make mistakes every day, and leaders are no exception. If you have high standards, you may wrestle with the temptation to deny or dwell on your errors. Feel free to visit, but don’t pitch a tent there—remind yourself that so many of history’s errors have led to tremendous achievements. Most mistakes bear gifts—a lesson, a key insight, a motivating challenge, a tactical or strategic pivot point, a necessary ending, or new beginning. It’s up to you to move smartly beyond a misstep by claiming your gift(s) to be found there. In doing so, you exercise leadership in fallibility itself.
Self-coaching:
- Considering a recent mistake you made, how did you respond to it? Did you find yourself dwelling on it, or glossing over it?
- What insight, lesson(s), or amended action might follow from it?
- Given this, is there a more helpful way to respond to such mistakes in the future?
David Peck
Executive Coach and President
Leadership Unleashed
Twitter: recoveringleadr
______________________
Based on client experiences / lessons learned, our weekly LeaderTips have been offering self-coaching themes and topics of interest to leaders since 2004. They are often published in BusinessWeek Online, sent weekly to our clients, and hundreds of other corporate leaders worldwide. I invite you to forward them to others, who are also welcome to subscribe using the link below. Note that over 100 of these tips appear in my book, Beyond Effective: Practices in Self-aware Leadership. Click here to subscribe to LeaderTips via email.
