Everyone loves a winner. As a society, we like watching and reading about winners. We worship our sports heroes and we study and celebrate the great victories of history.
Hundreds of millions of people around the globe watch the Super Bowl every year, but only 5 or so can name the losers for the past 5 years. We remember the winners that grab the headlines and the losers are relegated to the fine print of the box scores and answers in trivia games.
Winning is great. It’s often the culmination of years of hard work, a relentless focus on condition and outstanding execution. What high school or college football coach hasn’t hung a poster in the locker or training room with Vince Lombardi’s inspirational quote:
“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious”
It’s easy to lose track of the reality that most victories are forged in the emotional blast furnace of prior losses.
It’s the losses and outright failures in life and business that either beat you down or fuel your competitive fires to grow and improve and compete and eventually lie on Lombardi’s metaphorical field exhausted and victorious.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not in favor of going out and seeking losses if you don’t have to. However, unless you are one of the rare ones that leads a charmed existence, chances are that you will suffer setbacks both large and small.
Your response to those setbacks is the measure of your character.
Projects will flounder and fail. What did you learn?
People that you invest in will fail or worse yet, seize the knife. Et tu Brute.
The life of a leader is filled with character building opportunities. Our scoreboards and performance measures and quarterlies tell part of the story, but victory as a leader takes place over a much longer time than we are accustomed to measuring.
Hey, I love great short-term numbers. I love the thrill of hitting and exceeding targets and the nice payday is good. But those victories are hollow compared to winning the real game.
Your victory as a leader will be reported years from now, perhaps long after you’ve walked off the field. Take a glance back and see what you’ve left behind.
If you’ve left a trail of people…professionals and leaders that are succeeding and successful and happily serving others, then you’ve won. Don’t worry about the failures. They made you stronger, they taught you how to succeed and they fueled the fire that ultimately forged your leadership character.
Today’s challenges might seem overwhelming. They’re truly nothing more than a momentarily obstacle or a misstep on a long road.
Take the time to face up to failure, reflect upon the lessons learned and then begin moving forward towards your next victory.
Regular readers know that I cannot resist looking to history for inspiration.
Lincoln faced defeat after defeat and a string of failed generals that left him the loneliest man in a divided America. He eventually got it right.
Washington might just have the worst Win-Loss record in the annals of military generals. We all know the outcome.
Failure can beat you down and break you if you let it. True leaders grimace, feel the burn in their bellies and then laugh and move forward.
Laugh today and keep moving forward.
I used to tell my wife that since I learned so many lessons from my failures, I could accelerate my career if I became a masochist!
Another great post, Art. Keep up the good work.
It was not more than 30 minutes ago that I was just thinking about a missed opportunity from my old fraternity days. It was election time and I backed out the race for the Vice Presidency of my fraternity. I don’t know if it was the fear of losing to my opponent or the fear of failing in my duties. The VP position is very important in my fraternity and I did not think I was good enough or strong enough. I never regretted it until now. It was a great leadership position and I missed out on a great experience, good or bad. My success or failure would have really taught me something about myself and would have helped me in my current supervisory position at work. Great blog Art and thank you for letting me write a response.
I couldn’t agree more with this post. I have always felt that in life, you don’t learn the best lessons through success. It is the times that you fail or make mistakes that allow a person to step back and look at both themselves and the situation or system they are involved in to make changes. If a person is always successful, they will think they are perfect. Additionally, faltering and making mistakes allows a person to realize that everyone is human. I think it’s the best lesson to learn early — that mistakes are okay (in most cases), and that the best way to never make the same mistake twice is to learn from it and become better from the situation. At the end of the day, I think that it is more important to look back at what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown for both the company you work for and yourself in evaluating your success.