No, not that one! But now that I have your attention, let’s talk about some of the other ones people often invoked in the office setting – the “F” words that become a vicious cycle in the wrong leadership hands.
The word “failure” has been saddled with a bad reputation for ages. In fact, it has also been imposed as a label on people who in turn are saddled with that reputation, which is unspeakably damaging. The letter grade system most of us grew up with made an “F” the equivalent of a scarlet letter. Yes, some wore it proudly, but others let it undermine their self-worth and determine their destiny.
Another “F” word that comes on failure’s heals, in the wrong environment, is of course fear. And then a third – finger-pointing.
In the hands of many people in a leadership position (we’ll get to why I didn’t call them “leaders” later), when something goes wrong, the finger-pointing begins and fear radiates through some or all of the organization. In poorly-led organizations, that finger-pointing often results in yet another “F” word: firing…which then reinforces the fear.
The overall lack of psychological safety created by the “F” word cycle leads to magnified negative outcomes for any organization with this culture, which is FROZEN!
Without breaking this vicious cycle, organizations become frozen, as in stagnant, paralyzed, no longer growing. And frozen becomes fragile, easily cracked and eventually broken. Highly-skilled workforce? Gone! Innovation and risk-taking? Gone! Cutting-edge products and services? Gone! Positive and growing financial forecast? Gone! Eventually, even the company…GONE!
As some wise person once put out in the universe, when you point the finger at someone else, you have four others pointing back at you. The difference between the people in a leadership position and highly-effective leaders is their attitude. Highly-effective leaders see a mistake, miscalculation, failure of a project, etc. as an opportunity to learn and grow.
When something goes wrong, that leader first looks at those four fingers pointing back and examines their processes, policies, procedures and other internal and external factors surrounding that error, to see what may need to be done differently. The first instinct is NOT to point fingers at people.
Great leaders debunk the bad reputation of the word “failure” and embrace it as an opportunity to “fail forward”, learn, grow, and level-up. They break that vicious “F” word cycle and create a vibrant, learning, innovative, positive, low-turnover, successful organization.