Go ahead and laugh, as we all know many organizations recode the word “problem” into “challenge” and "opportunity."
Yet when a leader can respond to a loss or setback with an open mind and ability to derive its key lessons, strife becomes the breakfast of champions.
Of course I encourage you to learn as much as possible from self-reflection and trusted advisers, but nothing teaches with the surgical skills of the losses, fumbles, setbacks, failures, conflicts, dramas, and catastrophes. These are, after all, universal. We encounter them more than once ... and if we're not, we need to double check to make sure we're stretching ourselves beyond just “playing it safe.”
From "problem-tunities" we learn much more effective leadership lessons in self-awareness than hundreds of happy days strung together IF we don't get lost in busy-ness, ego, shame, or guilt.
That’s not to negate the feelings—because denying the feelings that go along with setbacks gives them permanent residency as lumps under the rug of our consciousness, waiting there, where we can trip over them again. Self-awareness challenges us to experience something fully, feel it in detail, and then LET IT GO, moving beyond it with the lesson(s) well in hand.
David Peck
Principal and Senior Executive Coach
Goodstone Group, LLC
