[September 7, 2015] One of my grandmother’s favorite pieces of advice to me – after I’d done something wrong – was that you have to make mistakes to be a great person. As a boy I couldn’t understand what she meant and one day I asked her about it. She told me that only those who try new things and work hard will succeed at being a good … and that when we do that, as human beings, we will invariably make mistakes. We should, she said, learn valuable lessons from them.
She also told me that it would be smart if I learned from the mistakes of others. This is one of the themes of myLeaderMaker.com as it is threaded throughout this blog and is a crucial component of what makes up a great leader. This concept is especially apt as we look at organizations that have no tolerance for mistakes. The best leaders are those who allow us to fail without allowing us to be failures. This, I believe is what my grandmother in her own way was trying to tell me.
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Two of my favorite quotes from well known heroes of mine are here. Essentially they are saying what my grandmother told me many decades ago while we lived in rural Louisiana. Today many people think there are only “hicks” living in the rural countryside. Such sentiment only shows a lack of maturity as they fail to see the intelligence and value-focused thinking of people like my grandmother. Each time I make a big mistake in my life, I can picture my grandmother as she looked 50 years ago with her apron and round face telling me about how to be the best I could be.
I remember being afraid of making mistakes and my peers making fun of me as I looked like a idiot or of getting into trouble when my parents found out what I did. Moral courage is a part of having the guts to make a mistake, own up to it, learn from it, and then move on. Leaders recognize that making mistakes is just a necessary step in the process of achieving my goals.
Two other things to know about making mistakes … First, a leader needs to keep their emotions in check and not lash out at others when we are frustrated by failures. Second, you have to keep fighting, trying your best, even when a failure is imminent. Prudence is the best choice. We should always learn from a mistake, but a mistake should never defeat you. This is what great leaders know and my grandmother would smile knowing that I finally got what she was telling me.
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