The Value of Failure in Leadership

Answer

Failure is significant in life as it enhances effective leadership skills. I can use a failure in my career to improve my vision in two ways; trust my guts and make better decisions and, appreciate my leadership responsibilities. Failure is a powerful source of know-how to make me stronger and wiser (Carmeli, Tishler, Edmondson, 2012). For instance, I would make use of the failure to trust my guts and make better decisions based on my failure experience and get better equipped to navigate new situations. As such, the failure will enhance my entrepreneurial spirit as a leader, enabling me to see opportunities with clarity and focus. Failure facilitates learning about survival, renewal and reinvention of myself and the organization am leading. Besides, the failure would be helpful in developing a better understanding of the expectations my followers had of me as their boss and how to deal with the challenges facing the organization that led to the failure. I can also use the failure to open my eyes and appreciate my responsibilities as a leader (Hirak, Peng, Carmeli, Schaubroeck, 2012). For instance, the failure gives me an opportunity to strive to become a more effective leader through learning by experience and finding innovative ways to improve my leadership skills.

Transformational leadership is a type of leadership driven by a vision to effect the revolutionary organizational change through commitment to the organization's set goals and vision. Transformational leaders possess certain traits and characteristics that enable them to realize their vision. Such traits and characteristics include; loyalty, learner, enthusiasm, accountability, discipline, empathy and result-oriented (Tims, Bakker, Xanthopoulou, 2011). The transformational leaders are loyal to the cause and, to others involved in the cause. By putting others' interest first, transformational leaders manifest loyalty by helping everyone become better thus, achieve idealized influence on their followers. Besides, such leaders have the characteristic of ever learners by constantly finding better ways of doing things more efficiently and effectively from others. Through constant inquiry and dialogue with colleagues, the leader models the intellectual stimulation to their followers by deepening of their intellectual capacity. Also, the transformational leaders are enthusiastic about their work and use the enthusiasm to inspire and motivate their followers hence, achieve inspirational motivation that is characterized by high performance. Moreover, the transformational leaders believe in accountability in which they hold themselves responsible for the cause (Roueche, Baker III, Rose, 2014). The leaders encourage others to hold their leaders accountable. This makes leaders accountable themselves thus, achieving idealized influence. This accountability makes others accountable hence induces the high expectation in inspirational motivation.   

Furthermore, transformational leaders are characterized by their high level of discipline in their behaviors and the organization. In being disciplined, the leaders never get distracted from their focus by any outside influence (Wright, Moynihan, Pandey, (2012). Hence, the leader remains consistent with the idealized influence on followers. Finally, a transformational leader is empathetic and displays individual consideration by enabling others to learn from their mistakes. The transformation leader is result oriented and believes that teamwork maximizes the expected results (Roueche, Baker III, Rose, 2014). Thus, the leader focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of all parts of the organization through tight systems of monitoring and evaluating the performance of all parties in the cause.

The response to failure by a transformational leader would impact positively on the performance and behavior of the employees by inspiring them to put more effort towards efficiency, effectiveness and performance (Tims, Bakker, Xanthopoulou, 2011). This view presents a  rationale that, the transformational leaders' characteristics discussed above posit a greater opportunity for the leaders to view the failure as an opportunity for success and to use all the four factors generated by their traits i.e. Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation and Individual Consideration, to influence and inspire the employees towards high performance by inducing them to believe in accountability and hold themselves accountable for the failure without blaming it on one another (Hirak, Peng, Carmeli, Schaubroeck, 2012). This will, therefore, encourage teamwork that is necessary for the required high performance of the employees.

I believe that failure is an integral part of life that significantly contributes to the effectiveness of leadership. Failure is the most effective learning tool for a leader as it enables one to learn from experience and empowers leaders to be fearless agents of change in the organization (Hirak, Peng, Carmeli, Schaubroeck, 2012). For example, failure has always been an eye opener for me when it comes to appreciating my leadership responsibilities. From failure, am made to re-think of my duties and seek to find more innovative ways to be effective to avoid a replay of failure in future hence, I find my leadership skills improved and end up more effective in leadership. Another example to that effect is that failure has made me fearless as I embark on new ventures as I feel empowered by my experience of failure to make better decisions and better equipped to explore new situations. Having reflected on the failure and what ought to have been done to prevent the failure, I am in a position of strength to trust my instinct and see opportunities with greater clarity and focus.

The five best practices that leaders should follow to be effective after failure include;

• Have Short Memories of the mistake- my interviewee bounced back to success because he did not dwell on the mistake but moved his focus to his vision.
• Put Good Systems In Place – after the failure, my interviewee reflected on the possible causes of the failure and noticed that good systems in place translate to minimal chances of failure. He bounced back to success after putting good systems in place.
• Be Competitive- my interviewee notes that after failure, “It always came back to competitiveness.” Competition enables one to improve on leadership skills by seeking for new innovative ways to offer the best in the market.
• Bring Out The Best In Others – my interviewee says, "We're developing the human properties by reaching people and bringing out whatever the best is they have to offer." Success is a teamwork and if everyone offer their best failure is not an option.
• Make Necessary Changes- the interviewee leaned a lot of lessons from his past failure and made necessary changes in the system of his organization that finally bore fruits of success.

Experience with failure and leadership promotes risk-taking. The rational about this argument is that the experience with failure makes a leader stronger and wiser (Hirak, Peng, Carmeli, Schaubroeck, 2012). The leader becomes fearless in facing uncertainties as the experience puts one in a position of strength to trust his/her instinct hence one get to trust in self-ability to handle uncertainties.

In conclusion, failure is an integral component of life that provides opportunities for success. Without chances of failure, no efforts would be made towards innovative ways of improving life. The best style of leadership is transformational leadership that translates the failures into opportunities for success. The obsession of the society with success and the view of failure as weakness are misguided and may deter leadership skills development and risk-taking.