Greetings All,As we consider characteristics of leaders I want to highlight some on the blog. Today I want us to consider the issue of "failure." One of the challenges leaders face is the reality that we may fail in our undertakings be them business or ministry or even family. The truth is "failure is a part of life." It is not that leaders avoid failure, it is how we acknowledge the reality that we have failed and how we move forward from there. Here is a link to an article in Forbes magazine about what we can learn from failure. While it is an article focused on the business world, the ideas put forth are just as applicable to a ministry setting. When you get a moment read the article and then post a comment to this post where you name one of your personal failures and how you moved forward.
Your brother in Christ,
Faron
The failure that immediately popped into my head occurred in 2005. The pinnacle of my education and the only way to become licensed in the field of law was the bar exam. The two-and-a-half day exam consists of a multiple choice component and an essay component. Those who take the exam in July must wait until October for their scores. You know that you've passed if you see your exam number (or in some states, your name) on a list published by the state's supreme court. My number did not appear on the list in October 2005.
ReplyDeleteWhy did I fail the exam? There are probably several. The main one, however, was taking for granted my writing skills. I was so nervous about the dreaded multiple choice component of the test - which is the section in which most students have difficulty - that I did not spend enough time preparing for the essay component of the exam. I was banking on skills getting me through that section when I should have prepared for it as completely and thoroughly as I prepared for the notoriously difficult section.
It was difficult to see my colleagues succeed at their first attempts. It was difficult to have to respond to the questions from those who knew I took the exam. But, eventually, I was able to turn my sights toward the exam, retake it, and pass. I am not proud of having to take the exam twice. However, I learned a valuable lesson about preparation and about myself as a result of having to take it a second time. And my licensure has a significance that would not be present if the process had been "easy" for me.
One of my personal failures that comes to mind is actually a collection of failures that all revolved around the last year of teaching that I did. It was the worst school year because I had a class full of demon children, otherwise known as middle school students, smack dab in the the middle of my school day. So therefore, I spent the morning dreading the class that was to come, and the rest of the day just trying to recover from it. Individually, the kids were not bad (at least most of them were not), but throw 30+ of them together in an enclosed space and chaos ensued.
ReplyDeleteI have never felt more of a failure than I did teaching that class. I spent most of the year researching new methods of teaching and discipline and attempting to implement them in that class. However, nothing I did ever seemed to work. I constantly tried to move forward and not give up on the students in that class but they constantly made that a difficult task. I was pretty stubborn though, and even though there were days that I simply could not take anymore, I could never "give up" on them for long. It was only until the last month of the school that I just decided that I did all that I could possibly do and just gave myself the permission to say I am through trying.
Since that was the last year that I taught before becoming a stay at home mom, I am not sure I have had an opportunity to really move on from this experience. I spent the next few years trying to figure out what my job would be after my kids started school because there was no way that I would be able to return to teaching based on my apparent lack of ability to teach a group of middle school students. However, I love to teach so when I do go back, then I will have a long list of methods to draw from should I be unfortunate to have a similar type of class.
For me failure is usually not an option, so for me it's hard (professionally) to think of a lot of failures. In fact, this is precisely why I have succeeded as well as I have in my career because I have been so good at risk mitigation. I bring this point up before talking about my personal failures, because I believe it highlights the professional and societal pressures that failure is not allowed and is a very negative thing. I believe this is a major contributor as to why so few people volunteer to lead.
ReplyDeletePersonally, my biggest failure has been my tenure as the Scoutmaster in Boy Scouts. It was especially hard due to the amount of pressure, prestige, pride, and passion I had put into the program and the position.
I tried hard to put into words what I learned and what exactly caused my failure, but was unsuccessful. I think that's partially because I'm still coping and trying to learn what went wrong, what I could have done better, and what I've learned from it.
I do know that this experience did teach me that while I may have leadership skills true leadership takes practice and trial and error. So while my first leadership role may not have been successful, I believe I can still be an impact-full leader in some capacity.
My first marriage failed and ended in divorce. In my immaturity it was at first easy for me to blame everything on what I thought my ex-husband had failed to be or do. When I was able to get real with myself and share in the blame of the union of TWO people that had failed, I was able to learn more about myself and my weaknesses as well as what I need in and from a relationship. I am now in what I consider to be a successful marriage and am able to use what I have learned to make my marriage stronger every day.
ReplyDeleteMy first semester at college was a failure for me. I had dreams of becoming a veterinarian when I left high school. However, I was not able to make the grade in certain classes that were required, and with more like them to go, my counselor encouraged me to find another career path. I was heartbroken because I had always thought that what I wanted. Rather than giving up on college all together, I went to my counselor and asked what options I had. I took a couple of tests that would give me some ideas, and I looked back at other elective classes I took in high school. After looking at the test results and some prayer, I made the decision to switch to Accounting and never looked back. It taught me that doors close so other ones can open and to never give up because God has a plan for each of us.
ReplyDeleteI can identify with the main points of the article based on a recent failure I experienced at work. A project implementation did not go so well and what I learned from the experience has helped to transform me as a leader. The outcome was much better the second time around and the resulting process is now viewed as a model for the organization.
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