In our day to day work as a team it is not uncommon that we come across failures sometimes, to achieve goals or targets set. Now as a leader, imagine that you and your team have a huge task ahead to complete, competing against another team. The success at this task is very crucial to you and your team. For you it may mean a promotion that you have been waiting since a long time, and for your team a huge incentive/bonus on achieving success at the said task. You have meticulously planned every bit of it and carefully executed with your team’s cooperation. You have left nothing to chance and your team has done everything in their capabilities to work towards success at it. Post completion of the task you are awaiting result for your work that you have just finished. You and your team are so confident that you will win and are already planning celebration of your success. Now let’s say that the results are announced and as a shock for you and the team, your team failed and the other team won the competition; thereby getting all the benefits. The team is devastated and you are in utter grief by the news of your failure. You are so sad to the point of mourning, that things have not worked out for you and it will be a while for that promotion to happen now. What would be your next course of action? How would you react to the present situation with your team? Times like this for both you and the team is testing and one like being on the edge of a cliff. One wrong move or one false step here could be fatal to the team’s morale and needless to mention your own hopes too. So what do you do? My recommendation, the first thing you do is to clear your mind and plan a celebration for you failure. Sounds crazy isn’t it, but do it for sure, do not falter. Please understand that this is one of such times that the people/team need their leader the most. In other words it is a defining time for you as a leader. Also, the leaders are needed for tough situations. Anybody can celebrate success effortlessly, but it takes a great deal for a person to compose himself/herself and celebrate failure. The reasons that you should celebrate your failure are the following:
·
To appreciate the team for the fact that
they put up an excellent effort to win.
·
To avoid a fault finding exercise that
people usually restore to when they encounter failure.
·
To motivate them that it is just a
matter of time; there probably are better things in store for everyone.
·
Most importantly to learn what the other
team has done differently to win.
In order to do this you should mentally prepare
yourself that with the kind of abilities you possess, this is certainly not the
end of the world. There are a host of opportunities to explore. You need to
understand the fact that quitting on failure is quitting on yourself. You are
capable of much more things than worrying about the past. So celebrate your
failure and do it with the same grandeur that you would celebrate your success.
This bounce back will show people what exactly you are made of; and a failure
however bad will not intimidate you. These abilities certainly establish you as
a great leader.
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