Strength in failure

As a leader, you have much less control over the outcome of the things that you are dealing with. You are no longer operating in an environment with a defined outcome that you are confident you can achieve. 

You are juggling multiple balls, some of which you have really no control over and you have to respond to as the need arises. You have to deal with ambiguity and the impact of things over which you don't have control.

Your previous experience of managing was reactive because an issue arose. It's a problem that needed to be solved. It had a defined context. And you were able to react to that with a high degree of confidence that the solution that you implemented would be successful and it would achieve the results that you wanted.

But with leadership there is no guarantee of success. Everything's shifting simultaneously, everything's changing and priorities change at a moment’s notice because something else was a higher priority in terms of risk or resourcing or because of shifting factors outside your control. 

And you need to be nimble enough and agile enough to pivot to either take advantage of a new opportunity or to ensure that changes the circumstances don't derail the existing activities of the company. And furthermore there is no guarantee that the actions that you undertake will deliver the outcomes you are seeking to achieve. You have to learn to live with the ambiguity. It is not perfect.

And suddenly you are in a situation where you are not sure what to do anymore. And that doesn't feel like leadership; that feels like failure.

And when people who are not used to feeling this feel they have failed, they don't want to share that. The classic response is to withhold information about potential negative issues due to ignorance, a misguided belief that if they wait a solution will present itself, or through fear of being seen to be failing. So they don't seek advice or ask because they feel they ought to know.

An essential skill for a leader is to understand the complexity of the context in which they now operate and how little control they have over all of those contexts. And quite often, unfortunately, boards and managers of these people do not realise they are floundering.

So a really fundamental mindset piece is to begin to understand that, in leadership, sharing bad news is not about failing. Sharing bad news is strength – because the bad news quite often that you have to share is not of your making. 

In leadership, bad news is not a cause, it is a context. Therefore, it is essential that issues are shared with others they report to, and they proactively seek advice from them and seek their different perspectives, to enable them to come to a more holistic understanding of the context in which they operate so that they can make more relevant and discerning decisions. 

In essence, leadership is as much about learning as it is about leading.

Read Felicity Morel-EdnieBrown's last piece on the 'crisis in confidence' for leaders in African Review September here: https://www.africanreview.com/magazine-archives/african-review-september-2023