Owning and embracing your failures

Own your failures. Embrace them. Talk about them.

Why are some people so reluctant to talk about failure?

When getting to know and understand leaders in interviews, it’s interesting to understand about situations in which they have failed, and what they learned from it.

And yet still, despite the constant messaging that we give to young people, that failure is OK and a chance to learn, so many leaders feel uneasy talking candidly about times when they’ve failed or made an error in judgement.

Asking about failure in an interview should not be a trick question, one intended to bring a candidate crashing to the ground.

If you are being interviewed, explaining about a failure doesn’t have to be turned into a story about how it was ‘actually a success’.  

Spinning your failure into demonstrating that you are ‘a perfectionist’ is not necessary, and certainly doesn’t win extra credibility in interview (at least not with me). And if you can’t think of a time that you failed… well, then I would question whether you have ever taken any risks, listened to anyone else’s opinion, done anything

innovative, or indeed whether you are human.

Being able to openly explain your failures, own them and reflect on them, shows many positive traits, and certainly traits that we look for in authentic leaders.

Let’s be honest, the most fascinating biographies are rarely about people who have had a faultless existence.