To be very honest, failure by itself is a very contextual subject- you have instances in history wherein great advances have occurred on account of failing at something that was intended to be done and ending up coming up with something unexpected, which ended up being more potent then the original pursuits that people had set course for! Well,what really unfolds as and when Leaders fail? Why do leaders fail, is it them or is it something else and when is this failure good and when is it damaging? Join me here as we race ahead to try and answer these questions and get to know the leader in a new light!

To begin with Leaders too start like anyone and everyone else- they are individuals to begin with. Their leadership space begins to manifest as they begin to bank on their intrinsic or acquired abilities and rise up to the occasion as and when it presents itself to make their arrival known. Furthermore as if arriving to be a leader wasn’t enough- whether you lead a great nation or just lead your community or a few blocks of your local residence associations, every time you wear the hat of being a Leader- you will be under scrutiny- intense and continuous in proportion to the span and influence that your leadership commands! This is why few have said that Chairs are often aspired for, but when it comes to take that coveted seat- it takes much more than the astute planing that one would have creatively executed to reach there- it takes a new level of Leadership to ensure that the Chair welcomes you and goes onto enhance and compliment the Person who happens to be the new tenant of the coveted chair! Leadership has two core elements- One is THE CHAIR and the second one is THE PERSON. Unless these two don’t shake hands- nothing worthwhile will ever emerge from the office- no matter whose office it is!

THE PERSON- who gets entrusted with the space of leadership is always as vulnerable as you and I, irrespective of anything and everything. This for the simple reason that being human makes all of us equally susceptible to dynamism of the world matters and a random nudge or that odd push is often enough to derail even the best leaders, more so when the stakes are high and the contextual settings are charged with uncertainty- either intrinsic or contextual- both of which may or may not be in the control of the Leader and this is from where everything that can go wrong begins to go wrong and depending on who the leader is and how strong or weak their leadership fortress has been that slippage will either be slow or fast!

History has been replete with examples- whether it be about leaders who were asked to lead nations or it was about the much fabled CEO’s of the bygone golden era of management opulence- even if those leaders had done a 100 things right, it almost always took only that 1 fatal error of judgement which ended up pushing them into the dark alleys of history for all the wrong reasons and many a times wiping away every shred of greatness and goodness that they had got along with them- everything wiped off for that last miscalculation! Seems cruel- it is and this is why when people assume leadership roles they demand their pound of flesh in terms of the astronomically high pay checks and perks- often as a limited cushion to fall back upon – if and when the things horribly go wrong- for they too know very well- that no matter how much they strive and keep at it- it will always only take that one singular incident to rip away everything that they would have built and held together- irrespective of the fact whether the error of judgement stems from their overworked minds or whether it comes from the much coveted group think called as the strategic team) or from factors which are external and more importantly beyond control.

Rarest of the rare are the cases where Leaders and their Leadership are intentionally designed and set up to fail to send across a strong message to everyone rallying for that leader or for that ideology- so that when the castle comes down crashing- the time it takes to get rebuilt doesn’t take years- but rather generations and that is enough for the other opponent to make long strides and take quantum leaps to move ahead in the direction that they wish to- sounds familiar?- well this is the space of the fabled, contested and often accompanied by loud noise- this is the space of political leadership! Political Leaders and Political Leadership is altogether a different ball game and this perhaps is the only space where a Leader can’t afford to display their human and vulnerable side like the Leaders in the corporate world get to do- simply because, absolutely no one- and no nation- will ever like to be lead by a leader who seems to be lost or weakened- stronger the nation- stronger is the Leader need to match the deliverable and rise up to be worthy of the coveted CHAIR that awaits the Leader! This is why perhaps politics remains the only play field wherein defeated and lost Leaders are able to come back and robust and tall leaders at times get the flak- politics is one space where Leaders and their Leadership is tested to the max and the fluid dynamism that the contextual settings bring along with them either makes the Leader and their office buyout and propels it ahead or drags it down and sinks the whole effort of the Leader and the Leadership that is been practiced!

Coming back to our white collared leaders and their leadership, unlike the political class, when they begin to get too stiff and seemingly impregnable and start to assume iconic stature- is when the real problem starts! Sure enough there are those rare instances of the bygone eras, where strong charismatic leaders lead from the front and created corporations which are the global power houses of the world today- but this is what my precise point is- why aren’t those leaders not to be found anywhere around now- why no one- none of the leaders in today’s world seem to be even somewhere close to these masters of yesteryear? Sure enough, the world has changed and the contexts are nothing like what they were even perhaps five years back, let alone 70 years ago- but that is the whole point! Shouldn’t have Leaders and Leadership too matured and walked in-step to the changing dynamism of the world in equal measure- rather by being one step ahead? Well, in those rare instance where that has happened we have witnessed iconic organisations being created which have continued to “wow”humanity on an ongoing basis through their ability to continually innovate and rejuvenate and when that has not happened we have also witnessed great names biting the dust and walking their way to their own funerals in the corporate graveyard- with that sealing the promise of jobs, careers and any meaningful hope to the people who toiled and sweat their lives to create meaning out of a gasping and fading light!

If you thought that the challenge resides only with THE CHAIR or THE PERSON, think again- there is one more crucial element to this ecosystem and that is the space of other people who are directly and indirectly fueling the success of the failure of the Leader and their Leadership! History is a witness to the demise of great corporation on account of flawed “group think” and brazen “individual decisions” just to satiate bloated egos and capture the limelight of the moment- which needless to say more often then not has actually ended up turning to be the proverbial and celebrated final nail in the coffin of that organizations demise! Leadership is never practiced in vacuum and that is where the secret lies! The moment you have the wrong cooks in the kitchen, even the best of the recipe’s that you would have thought of or planned for are going to end up being a classical disaster! This is what happens to Leaders and Leadership when they assemble the wrong people around them- sure enough Leader’s must not be erring with judgement about people that they choose, but the weird ways of the corporate world more often than not end up serving even the wisest of Leaders, extraordinary dumbness in bountiful servings discussed as advisors and specialists!

So you see, the failure of Leaders, is not about the Leader alone, it is about the chair, the people around as well and it is only when any of these or many of these three aspects begin to go wrong and start to run away with a mind of their own, not being cohesive to the core aspirations of the Leader or the promise of The Leadership is that Leadership Failure begins to form and unless it is nipped in the bud, the runaway issues begin to manifest and one thing start to lead unto the next and in no time- what we have is an organization just ending up fire fighting day in and day out form one problem unto the next, from one department to the next, not realizing the real cause of what’s unfolding and where the real fix lies! So can’t failing Leaders and their Leadership be saved? Is it that once the failure commences it has to always end up the way it normally does?

The answer is a YES and a NO, Leaders and their Leadership can be save d and rescued from imminent failure only and only if it has the right circuit breakers and early warning mechanisms in place as a safe guard- pretty much lie you have a spike guard to save your valuable electronic assets, and NO if the Leader and the Leadership practitioners continue to believe in what they do and tend to simply ignore and look the other way around- with or without arrogance- then, in those kind of confrontational and non-accepting and hallucinated context- the whole suite of the Leader and the loyal practitioners are ejected from whatever they control and work for and in no time either you have a new set of sensible and more wise people take up the whole issue of stopping the failing enterprise or you have a complete collapse and wipe off of the entity from the pages of the corporate world for good- albeit after sever damage has been done! The story of failing Leadership and Leaders is perhaps the highest form of manifestation of Human Incompetence and whether nation is being lead or a chain of restaurants is being run- the damage is always proportional to what is being managed and almost always damaging and the time taken to repair that is considerable.

Sure enough, it is not a all gloom and all doom story, but when lessons are learnt and understood and observed in the space of failure of Leaders and Leadership, it is only then that humanity and society as a whole gets more serious on the efforts that it must take to ensure what was experienced doesn’t come back to them again! Every large problem that humanity deals with is nothing but an aspect of failure- failure of either of the Leader or their Leadership or partly of both and it is only when the failing element is corrected that balance is restored and societies tend to begin walking again on the path of progress and in the intended direction!

When Leaders fail the stakes are almost always high and then it really doesn’t matter who really failed- whether it was the Leader, The People around or the Leadership style- what alone matters is how fast and how quick the damage is undone and some sense or meaningfulness is restored for the greater good of everyone who is being impacted! Always remember Great Leaders are the most Vulnerable and that is why it only makes sense to protect them and their vulnerability- for that alone is the real way to avoid failure! I have intentionally not wanted to get into the technical space of arranging bullet points or numbering or listing down causes of failures of Leaders or Leadership and how to fix them , simply because that is not how life works and there is no real life manual to fix real world problems that way! All of that looks great for academic debates, but the trues tests and essence is realized only when the rubber hits the tarmac; you better want it to hold the things there for you, especially if that rubber is of a landing fighter jet or that presidential car zooming past by you!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to take some time off and reflect on what is that you have been experiencing around you, both as a Leader that you are and as a member of the society that you are in and what is that you think you can still do differently to alter and change the balance in favour of a meaningful and vibrant future for yourself and for the people who matter to you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then Lead and Lead well to overcome all that can or may derail what you try to Lead!