After three days of an SSAT Conference you left bruised. Keynotes poke and prod at your leadership thinking, some more aggressively than others. Workshops leave you eager to walk a different path and for ‘green, aspirational leaders,’ like myself, the conversations around and about the conference, provide numerous opportunities to observe experienced leaders ‘at work.’ (You can learn a lot by just watching).
Whilst ‘Excellence for All’ was clearly evident, ‘Failure as Fertiliser’ could well have been an undercurrent. From
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better – Samuel Beckett
to
Without stones there is no arch – Marco Polo
To the freedom to fail / explore through ‘non-commissioned work’ – Daniel Pink and Sir Bob Geldof quoting Goethe
Whatever you would do. Or dream of doing, begin it! Boldness has power, genius, and magic in it. Begin it now.
Excellence is the aspiration, but success seems largely to do with how we handle and perceive failure. This psychological dilemma has long been a coaching dilemma for me, but more recently it has become a leadership conundrum.