There’s coming a time where you will find yourself leading a group meeting and a team brings in an update that nobody wants. The tests failed, the money we risked is lost and we’re not any closer to the solution than we were before.

Nobody likes these meetings; but hey, business is never easy. 

Your natural inclination may be to verbally smack a few people around, to find out who is to blame for this and what they’re going to do to make this up to you before you add them to the ‘to be shunned’ list of former leaders. After all, we are winners; not losers. 

I’d like to suggest that nearly all big winners are losers who kept on pushing following a big failure. I’m not suggesting we don’t have checks and balances in place or that we throw good money after bad. 

I am suggesting that you resist the urge to criticize non-fatal failures anytime they are made out of ambition or trying to win. Praise the effort, belly laugh at how badly it bombed and make them laugh hard too. Encourage them to try again and add your ideas for next time.

These are the leaders that will be the ones to discover solutions to unsolvable problems. It also tells everyone else they never need to play it safe to avoid blame. Word will get around that our leader is a hard driver and fully expects to win; but she also expects some cuts and scratches along the way.