Previous Failures In Business Are Actually Leaders’ Greatest Strengths
Failure is one of the most daunting aspects of business leadership, but the fortunate reality is that, in many cases, it is actually an opportunity in disguise.
Setbacks are a treasure trove of lessons that can become immensely beneficial with hindsight, contextualizing potentially difficult decisions and making leaders more well-rounded in guiding their teams.
I believe this relatively simple shift in interpretation can yield deep, far-reaching benefits for workplaces in need of a holistic boost. Today’s most successful leaders know how to frame present failures as future strengths, which allows them to become better equipped in their roles.
Embracing Setbacks
When we consider what makes an effective leader in the 2024 workplace, perhaps one of the most crucial principles that comes to mind is adaptability. The modern economy has become increasingly reflective of macroeconomic turbulence, social consciousness and other variables that warrant a more nuanced and progressive leadership approach.
When these factors permeate the workplace and create internal challenges, leaders must be prepared to deflect habitual reactions that might be detrimental to their teams-namely, anything standing to compound the situation and create negative groupthink. Such outcomes only create needless stress and misguided effort better suited for the overarching issue at hand.
Leading By Example
Instead, I believe leaders should channel their focus into a proactive stance, using the rawest moments of failure to inform a diligent, collaborative solution. Effective leadership, in this sense, is synonymous with leading by example.
Employees can be highly impressionable when it comes to a managerial or administrative presence-especially new hires and those entering new roles within the company-and leaders can positively leverage this characteristic by exemplifying poise in the face of adversity. In turn, employees may have an easier time adopting a similar approach in the future.
As these individuals gain experience and become mentors in their own right, they will pass these lessons on to newer workers, establishing a cyclical tradition of composure and forward-thinking. Today’s most successful companies tend to exhibit this kind of self-sustaining positive culture.
Finding Familiarity
Part of this healthy cycle is remembering to find familiarity in failure-that is, drawing key parallels between adverse situations in the past to better approach those in the present and future.
Having a plan is a great way to approach the more structured, expected aspects of everyday work life, but in times of sudden setbacks, this can be difficult in terms of building a dependable protocol. The best middle ground, then, is to dedicate time to reflecting on challenges once they have dissipated; what did the team learn along the way? What did it do well? What could it have done better?
All of these insights can help create a quicker sense of stability and initiative when new issues emerge down the line, and in a mental and emotional sense, they can help diffuse otherwise harrowing scenarios and make them feel much more actionable (for both employees and leaders).
By interpreting failure as an advantage, leaders can offer a wholesome reference point for their workers, embodying a positive demeanor that can create a helpful ripple effect within the workplace.
Originally published at https://www.forbes.com.
About the author Dylan Taylor
Dylan Taylor is a global business leader, commercial astronaut, thought leader and philanthropist. Currently, Dylan serves as Chairman & CEO of Voyager Space, a multi-national space exploration firm focused on building the next generation of space infrastructure for NASA and other global space agencies.
Dylan has been recognized by Harvard University, SpaceNews, the BBC, the Financial Times, Pitchbook,CNBC, CNN and others as having played a seminal role in the growth of the private space industry. As an early-stage investor in more than 50 emerging space ventures, including Axiom, Kepler, York, Astrobotic, LeoLabs, Relativity, and Planet, Dylan is widely considered the most active private space investor in the world.
Dylan’s technical background, global business experience and unbridled passion for space make him a unique figure within his industry. As a thought leader and futurist, he has written many popular pieces on the future of the space industry for Forbes, FastCompany, Newsweek, SpaceNews, The Space Review, and Space.com. As a speaker, Dylan has keynoted many of the major space conferences around the world and has appeared regularly on Bloomberg, Fox Business, and CNBC.
Dylan has extensive global business experience as both a board director and CEO in several industries, including advanced electronics, finance and real estate. He previously served as a Director for UMB Bank, a Fortune 500 company based in Kansas City and as a mutual fund director for the Jackson Funds where he oversaw assets of $8B across 130 distinct funds. He has also served in the roles of CEO, President and Board Director for multinational companies like Prudential PLC, Honeywell, Colliers and Jones Lang LaSalle. Dylan was recognized as a Fortune 1000 CEO with P&L responsibility in excess of $3B and operations encompassing 15,000 employees in over 60 countries. In addition, Dylan has participated in 4 IPOs over the course of his career.
Dylan is a leading advocate of space manufacturing and the utilization of in-space resources to further space exploration and settlement. In 2017, he became the first private citizen to manufacture an item in space when the gravity meter he co-designed and commissioned was 3D printed on the International Space Station. The historic item is now housed in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Dylan is an explorer of note. On December 11th, 2021 Dylan became just the 606th human to go to space as part of the crew of Blue Origin’s NewShepard Mission 19. Accordingly, Dylan earned his commercial astronaut wings with the FAA and his universal astronaut wings from the Association of Space Explorers.
He is also one of only a handful of humans to have descended to the deepest part of the world’s oceans, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench as part of the Limiting Factor Expedition in July of 2022. In that mission, Dylan descended with pilot Victor Vescovo to a depth in excess of 10,800 meters (35,500 feet) into an area of the Mariana Trench that had never been visited by humans. Dylan is the youngest human to have been to the deepest part of the world’s oceans and crossed the Karman line into Space. Dylan has been a member of the Explorers Club since 2014.
Dylan maintains an extensive philanthropic impact on the space industry. In 2017, Dylan founded the nonprofit and social movement, Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize space exploration and develop solutions to global issues through the scope of human awareness to help solve the world’s most intractable problems. Space for Humanity has successfully sent two citizen astronauts to space via Blue Origin including both the first Mexican-born woman (Katya Echazareta), and first African-born woman (Sara Sabry). Building upon his passion and support for the space industry, Dylan serves as a strategic advisor for both the Archmission and the Human Spaceflight Program and is a co-founding patron of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which promotes the growth of commercial space activity. Additionally, he is also a leading benefactor to the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and Mission: Astro Access.
Dylan is the founder and Chairman of Multiverse Media, an integrated global media company focused on science and technology, with an emphasis on space. Multiverse is the parent company of the popular space philosophy website 2211.world as well as the Ad Astra Dinners, a Jeffersonian-style dinner series featuring some of the world’s leading influencers discussing the future of humanity in space. Another subsidiary of Multiverse Media, Multiverse Publishing, publishes books by leading authors including Frank White, Isaac Asimov and Gerard K. O’Neill. Multiverse is also the executive producer of the documentary film, The High Frontier and the forthcoming film, Fortitude.
For his influence as a global leader and his commitment to creating a positive impact on the world, Dylan has been honored with numerous personal and professional accolades in recent years. The World Economic Forum recognized Dylan as a Young Global Leader in 2011 and a full member of the World Economic Forum in 2014. That same year he was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. In 2020, Dylan was recognized by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation with their top honor for business and finance, following in the footsteps of 2019’s inaugural winner, the late Paul Allen
and subsequent winners Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Dylan Taylor earned an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago and holds a BS in Engineering from the honors college at the University of Arizona, where he graduated Tau Beta Pi and in 2018 was named Alumnus of the year. He is also a graduate of the Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century program at Harvard University.
Dylan and his family reside in Denver, Colorado where he is active locally with Colorado Concern and theColorado Spaceport. In his spare time, Dylan enjoys hiking, competing in triathlons and spending time outdoors. As a weekend warrior athlete, Dylan has more than 25 top ten finishes and 25 age group wins to his credit, and he regularly interviews world class athletes whom have shown extraordinary resilience as the host of the Legendary Podcast. He is married to legal expert, consultant and author Gabrielle V. Taylor with whom he has two teenage daughters.
