If Young Nonprofit Professionals Want to Lead They Need To Learn To Fail
by Nikita T. Mitchell
Failure is a crucial ingredient in every great leader’s recipe for success; unfortunately we live in a society that demonizes failure. It’s viewed as something that only happens to unintelligent, impulsive, and reckless individuals.
Kathryn Schulz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error states, “We are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition.” Nonetheless this resistance to failure, while affecting individuals in varying ways, ultimately impacts how we make career and leadership decisions.
Millennials and Failure
This internalized message of failure has a detrimental impact on emerging leaders. Most of us were raised with a safe plan for our lives: go to school, do well, graduate, get a good job, work there as a loyal employee for many years, save for retirement, then retire. This plan actually worked for many us: we were stellar performers in school, the best player on a sports team, the lead actress in the production, etc. We were on top of the world. We felt like we figured out the formula for success.
While this may have us pegged as a generation of over achievers we have actually neglected an important component of success: embracing failure. Instead of figuring out a formula for success, we’ve internalized a message that failure and long-term success are incompatible. This couldn’t be any further from the truth. Our success is directly correlated with the risks we are willing to take, risks that often could equally result in failure as it could result in success. The valuable lessons learned along the way only contribute to one’s experience and resilience as a leader.
Shifting Perspectives
As emerging leaders we need to be making a conscious effort to shift our perspectives on risk and failure. When considering how we can begin to change this mentality, the question I’m left asking is: Why aren’t we talking about failure?
Changing such risk-averse behavior requires a shift in culture for most organizations to allow for a more open and honest dialogue. Employees must observe leadership taking risks and praising coworkers who have as well. There should also be one-on-one coaching and mentoring taking place, providing employees with the opportunity to openly seek advice.
Discussing his own experience embracing failure, Clayton Rosa, a Coro Fellow in the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs, says, “Senior leaders need to encourage junior leaders to be confident by fostering an environment more receptive to failure. As an aspiring leader, exposure to failure and recognizing failure as an opportunity to grow has given me more inclination to take charge and to move forward confidently.”
While managers have a responsibility to foster such an environment for emerging leaders to thrive, millennials must push to have these kinds of conversations with mentors and managers. David Simmon, a partner at The Bridgespan Group, moderated a panel of nonprofit leaders called "So You Want To Be a Nonprofit Executive?" last year where he asked each of them to share a failure from which they’ve learned a valuable lesson. He was surprised at how openly willing the panelists shared their experiences with what he refers to as “positive failure”. As emerging leaders we need to seek out opportunities to learn from leaders in our organizations.
Millennials as Leaders
As agents of social change, we are passionate about the work that we do and want to see results. To be a leader is to be an active player in the process willing to roll sleeves up and get the work done. An effective leader is able to do what needs to get done, consistently weighing the risks and stepping up when necessary.
In his book Failing Forward, John C.Maxwell says it best: “…learn how to confidently look the prospect of failure in the eye and move forward anyway. Because in life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems.” The ultimate test of a leader is whether they allow their failures to define them. Being a leader means taking calculated risks, embracing the possibility of failure and persevering through it all. This is what we must have the courage to embody if we want to serve as leaders in our communities.
