It happened: a client you were certain to get turns down your offer, or a project you worked so hard for together with your team failed. The word “failure” is flickering in your mind on and off like a fire alarm. You want to move on from this moment, but you feel stuck in a vicious circle of looking for reasons and placing the blame. Worst of all, you have lost your optimism that you are doing great as a leader.
Stop! It is time to put behind that failure and rekindle the enthusiasm for your work. It has carried you forward so far, and now you have to regain it. After all, do you think the greatest leaders in the entire history of business never had a failure?
Henry Ford, the inventor of the all-American car, had to declare bankruptcy four times. Steve Jobs was fired from the company he founded. Elon Musk invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Space X program, only to see rocket launches failing spectacularly, with video records available online for as long as the internet shall exist. And Elon Musk also said: “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
So, how did these people, and many other lesser known but still successful leaders in their industries, get over failure and maintain their optimism? Here are a few ways:
1. Work on Your Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence does not only concern understanding others’ feelings, but also your own. Emotionally intelligent leaders accept negative feelings of frustration, anger, sadness and failure as a normal response to the events, but deal with them and put them away. In other words, they acknowledge that it’s natural to feel down, but do not remain trapped in this moment.
Learn to become insightful and to analyze your feelings. Don’t try to push them away — you will only become more bitter. Give yourself time to process these emotions and find the power within yourself to put them behind you.
Emotionally intelligent leaders accept negative feelings of frustration, anger, sadness and failure as a normal response to the events, but deal with them and put them away. In other words, they acknowledge that it’s natural to feel down, but do not remain trapped in this moment.
2. Surround Yourself with Positive People
The reason why you cannot get over the sense of failure could be not within you, but around you. How do your team leaders act? Are they ready to motivate their teams and start working on a new project? Or are they moping around, remembering the big failure and seeking someone to place the blame on?
Negative people will bring you down constantly. Even a victory will taste bitter around such people. As hard as it is, remove them from your organization. They may be good at their work, but their toxic attitude negates all positive contributions they may make to the success of the company.
3. Remember Your Core Values
What made you take this career path? What motivates you every morning when you wake up? The things which made you work hard to get to your position have not disappeared. They are still within you and they are still valid.
Failure is just an event in a long timeline of other events in your career. It is not something that should stop you and change the entire raison d’être for you as a person and a professional.
4. Be Grateful
In the midst of your negative trail of thoughts, stop for one instance and remember all the things you should be grateful for. You are a respected professional, you have a talented and loyal team, you have achieved a lot, and you will achieve more in the future.
Being grateful for all that you have is one powerful way of overcoming failure and staying optimistic. It is not the end of the world. It was a bump in the road, but the road is still under your feet and runs ahead of you.
5. After a Failure, Victory Tastes Sweeter
If you need one last reason to leave your moping mood behind, just think of the next successful project. All the naysayers will have to acknowledge your skill and professionalism. Your team will have increased confidence in you as a leader. All in all, it will be an even happier experience than usual.
All it takes is to put a confident smile on your face and tell your team: “Let’s get over this and move on with our work.”
This article was originally published on pldx.org.
