Exposing yourself to risk and failure can help push you up the career ladder. Just make sure someone’s watching.
During his 48-year career from owner of a small student newspaper to the head of a multinational conglomerate with over 400 companies, Virgin CEO Richard Branson copped the misses along with the hits, noting that every error in judgment, whether a foray into cosmetics or a push into the high stakes cola market, brought with it valuable lessons. “I’ll never again make the mistake of thinking that all large dominant companies are sleepy,” he blogged about his failed attempt to break the Coca-Cola and PepsiCo duopoly.
Learning to use mistakes well is an important leadership trait. In fact, looking at how an executive responds to failure can be more telling than assessing their success when weighing up a person’s ability to take on the leadership mantle. Great leaders learn from their errors. They are quick to recognise when a mistake has been made and are able to efficiently assess what can be salvaged or gained from the fallout. In many cases, feedback is immediate for anyone astute enough to learn from it.
via Make Mistakes Part of Your Career Success | INSEAD Knowledge.
Make mistakes?
So how many people did you fire for making mistakes?
If the answer is anything higher than zero, then you’re not practicing what you preach.