Will leaders be prepared to open up about their own failures?

There is an argument that leaders, through being honest about their own mental health challenges and their own failures, is needed today to free up talent from what has become a deep-seated mentality, developed by organizations, of not taking risks.

Do you agree? The argument that organizational culture and process has created the barriers to the desire of many emerging talents taking any risk. It has become well-known that companies dislike any risk factor so of course this will naturally impact on teams. Risk has become seen as a bad thing and yet it is just not true. So many of today’s leaders found success through taking chances and doing something outside of the box.

It has been noted before that many leaders do often bemoan the fact that so few today take risks without understanding that they created the conditions for this. Arguably, this all became worse post the 2008-9 Financial crash as process and “remits” became increasingly influential. How many times have we all sat in meetings when someone will say “it is not my remit?”. The very wording is an abdication so can only create negative culture. We have certainly all witnessed executives writing emails which say absolutely nothing and answer no questions.

This was all part of a recent conversation between a number of elders who noted on the one hand that business was better controlled, managed and sophisticated than in their own heydays but also so much less fun; they privately felt sad for young executives who clearly were not able to enjoy the same sense of freedom and adventure than they had once had.

They went on to note that it is failure which creates mental resilience and the grounds for successful behaviours.

Given all this, there is a good argument that it is therefore leaders who can be and need to be the catalyst for changing the dynamics. Maybe it is very important for leaders to be open about how they have faced their darkest times and come through. It creates a more open and human face to business, which can be important.

Most accept that cultures once again need to be central to success; that people are the key to great service and process should be in play to support that. People and talent need to feel empowered in order to be able to achieve and leaders need to set the tone.

So, will leaders be prepared to?

The argument goes onto to note that it helps create safe places where it is acceptable to both get things wrong and admit that one is struggling. Evidence suggests that such open environments will see more successful cultures.

Before anyone scoffs, one only has to look round at how hard it has been to get people back into workplaces to understand that many organisations did get things wrong in workplace cultures.

Written by Chris Sheppardson, founder of EP Business in Hospitality