A challenge many start-up business leaders may face is stepping away from a micro-managing mentality, to trusting their employees as a team to do the work.
Studies show that a high degree of mutual trust between subordinates and managers leads to greater workplace productivity.
Implementing high standards for work is crucial, however, punishing those who make mistakes can be counterproductive to a company’s overall growth.
On the contrary, investing time into building a strong team and challenging employees with greater responsibilities can lead to greater results for the company in the long term.
Mistakes as a Learning Tool
We as humans all make mistakes. When we’re operating in an environment that covets productivity, high performance, and results, we may feel pressured to never make mistakes. In reality, making mistakes early on in the process, allows us to have the rebound time to reflect and pivot towards better changes.
Leaders will benefit more from encouraging their employees to aim high, take on more accountability for their actions and learn from implementing the lessons they’ve learned from their mistakes to carve a better path forward.
Here are the reasons why leaders should encourage failure and take bolder risks.
Breed More Creativity and Innovation in the Workspace
Ingenuity doesn’t come often on a one-time strike. Usually, it takes several reiterations for a good idea to prosper. Successful leaders have most likely endured a fair number of losses along the way. But with each loss, comes valuable lessons they can use towards their next steps.
Part of hiring is intuition. The intuition that someone you hired will perform well in the role and is the right fit for the culture of the company. Effective leadership involves challenging people to meet their greatest potential— sometimes allowing people to think outside of the box and take on larger tasks.
Even for those running a multi-million enterprise like Kim Constable, the owner of The Sculpted Vegan and The Million Dollar Mentor, learning that failure was an inevitable part of the process took a few iterations. Scaling the company and bringing on team members to manage the 40,000 and growing online community took a great degree of trust— but more often than not it has led to greater growth in her companies.
For her right-hand woman, Christina Todd, COO of The Sculpted Vegan, learning to change her mentality around failure has propelled her to new heights at the company.
“As the business environment is constantly changing, I try to stay ahead of the curve and keep up with the latest trends. This involves taking risks and not being afraid to fail because it’s from the failures that we get to learn”, Christina says.
Building a Responsible Team Allows You to Focus on What You’re Best at
Entrusting your team with more self-direction enables the leader to focus on the things only they excel at. If you’re constantly strapped to micromanaging the daily operations, there is less time to allocate to building the larger picture.
For a company going from zero to the millions, it is essential that the company’s infrastructure is constantly being reviewed and updated. This task involves a great degree of intuition and leadership. There’s no secret formula to keeping the whole operation running smoothly. As the primary contact person for the company, Christina has made plenty of mistakes in the beginning, that she’s able to leverage to manage different departments with greater confidence.
Kim, on the other hand, worries less about the internal processes, but more on opportunities to network and expand her brand, The Million Dollar Mentor. Because she has entrusted her company to be run well without her micromanaging at every level, she has the capabilities to scale in a way where she can help more people achieve their fitness and business aspirations.
Evolving from Mistakes and Helping Others
Driving change can come from helping others see beyond their perceived failures and grow to realize their potential. We can use our own mistakes to help others avoid them. The great thing about having an organization is that the more your team succeeds, the more this is reflected in your own success. It’s no longer a zero-sum game because leaders benefit from helping their employees grow. This is the same type of mentality that should be applied company-wide.
We can leverage our own experiences, to help others achieve greater things. When we focus only on getting ourselves to a higher place, we inevitably are not contributing to the company’s overall success, but only our own.
Head Trainer of the Sculpted Vegan, Laura Hutchinson reflects on the difference working under leadership that covets individuality and failure has had on her growth.
“I didn’t understand my worth, employers took advantage of me both financially and with unrealistic expectations on my time. I now value myself highly of what I am worth and bring that value to the company, where I am now appreciated and my value reflected back to me”, Laura says.
Conclusion
The lessons we receive from failures can be applied to help us grow our business and our team. If you want to grow a company to anywhere near the levels of a 7 or 8 digit mark, you’re going to have to overcome the fear of failure and begin to entrust people with greater responsibilities in order to move the company forward.
