Is failure really failure?

The greatest leaders have inspirational stories to share.  The most memorable stories are typically those derived from the many failures that occurred before each success—defining such success really as the lessons learned during the journey.  So in retrospect, was each failure really failure? Let’s start with the premise that taking risks is risky and not taking risks is riskier. In every inspirational story, chances were taken and life happened just the way it was supposed to happen; perhaps just not the way it was  expected to happen.  

Recently, I have had the amazing opportunity to share a weekend with 16 powerful women.  I realized as each shared their story, the common denominator of each women was their ability to courageously persevere when times were difficult.  They took situations that the average person would have deemed a failure or insurmountable and instead saw them as opportunities to create something ordinary into something extraordinary.  Each of these highly successful women use the valleys in their life as an opportunity to review, renew and recommit--which gives them the endurance to continue to climb back up taking roads that peak even higher each time. 

In life we are all given choices of what roads to travel.  Sometimes the chosen paths of others may seem less direct, less optimum, yet the extra miles or more difficult road afford the traveler a deeper understanding and appreciation of the opportunity before them—they learn how to navigate landmines, creating greater than expected results. Emotionally intelligent leaders refrain from judgment and honor the alternative choices of others. In doing so, they resist taking control of other’s time, minimize stress in the relationship and increase trust in the environment. There was an inordinate amount of trust established during this weekend between these emotionally intelligent and successful women leaders, whom did not know each other prior.  Judgment was suspended and in its place was empathic listening and learning –each believing in creating the possible from the impossible. These women got more of what they focused on—they have a vision and they are fearless.  Fear is a powerful four letter word.  It is an emotion that rises up within us if we feel a sense of threat, feel uncertain, or feel insecure about a situation. These women, consciously or unconsciously,  believe that for something to be impossible it must be possible, therefore, impossible is nothing more than an excuse not to take the risk—or in other words, impossibility is nothing more than inaction stemming from fear.  

In their recent book, The Student Leadership Challenge , Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have identified The Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership™ that are common when leaders are able to make extraordinary things happen—1) model the way, 2) inspire a shared vision, 3) challenge the process, 4) enable others to act, and 5) encourage the heart. When I think about the stories, the commitments and the love that energized the room this weekend, each person intuitively embraced these five Practices.  I am certain I was amongst a group of women leaders who were the epitome of leadership—emotionally intelligent leaders who lead themselves the same as they lead others and in doing so create paths that others enthusiastically choose to follow. They allow themselves to fail, because they know failure is the real success, provided you don’t give up and fearlessly accept that risk usually means traveling down a different road, an unfamiliar road than what was originally planned.