Failing Well: How Self-Reflection Makes Leaders
Posted on June 17, 2023 by Trevor T Crunelle, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
Self-reflection, starting with self-awareness, is crucial for high performance in every domain of business leadership.
Failing Well: How Self-Reflection Makes Leaders
In the rapid pace of the business world, two things often get pushed to the side: things that take time, and things that are difficult. In my work with the Growth Coach of the Lowcountry, I can think of countless examples where the easy option—the efficient one—was not the best one. Self-reflection is one area that may require structure. But when it happens, the dividend is enormous. It makes for laser-sharp strategic focus.
Self-reflection, starting with self-awareness, is crucial for high performance in every domain of business leadership. Relationships, strategy, vision: everything points back to the leader in charge. If that’s you, self-reflection is one of your strongest tools. It helps you turn mistakes into strategic focus.
For many of my clients, the pace of life gets in the way of self-reflection. I’m not one to disagree. It’s easier to live in the dizzying pace of email and business negotiation. It is not easy to slow down, much less reflect on where we could have done better. Sometimes it’s just as simple as a regularly scheduled session to meditate. This discipline is worth it.
But often, we avoid self-reflection because we’re afraid of making mistakes.
Everywhere around us is the message that a mistake is a catastrophe. Not true. It’s unimaginable for a business owner to never make a mistake. In fact, a business owner who isn’t making mistakes probably has one of two things wrong. Either they aren’t taking enough risks, or they don’t see their weaknesses. Sometimes it’s unawareness of those weaknesses. More often, it is a problem of trusting an intuitive sense of what’s wrong.
Once we’ve gotten to self-awareness, the next step is admitting a weakness. Good business leaders do this often. Through self-reflection, and only through self-reflection, good leaders build the courage to fail well.
What does that mean? If some degree of failure is inevitable, the best option we have is to handle it well. Self-reflection helps us untangle the conflict. It lets us see what went right, what went wrong, and what can be done differently next time. We can’t expect success 100% of the time.
Processing information also takes time. With self-reflection, there’s a greater hope of that information actually becoming useful. Together, processing information and self-reflection can bring a refreshing clarity to your leadership. That clarity brings confidence. And that’s how a strategic vision unfolds. Courageous self-reflection helps you fail well and process information to make a strategic vision that bridges where you’ve been with where you’re going.
A business coach helps give self-reflection some needed structure. They help you identify the problems that get in the way of strategic focus. Then, they help you remove these obstacles. Unlike consultants, we don’t come in for a quick fix. Working with a business coach requires you to bring your all. What you get in return is the invaluable ability to lead your business well.
Don’t let self-reflection get sidelined. We tend to live our work life from one problem to another, jumping from task to task. But if you let self-awareness and self-reflection help you fail well, you’re on your way to developing strategic focus. You and your business will benefit.
