"The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate." At first glance, it sounds like a platitude fit for a motivational poster. Sure, we’ve all read the feel-good startup blogs about embracing failure. Yet, despite the institutional embrace of failure as a concept, there’s a lurking truth: most people are still terrified of it. And who can blame them? The specter of failure looms large, threatening reputations, job security, and even personal self-worth. It’s a fear that can paralyze the most brilliant minds, stifling the very creativity and risk-taking that are crucial for breaking new ground. Most organizations are built to avoid failure at all costs, which ironically, is a surefire way to stifle the kind of innovation they claim to value.
Imagine you’re an employee with an idea that could revolutionize the company. But what if it doesn’t work? What if it’s seen as a colossal waste of time and resources? What if it costs you your next promotion, or worse, your job? This is the internal dialogue that haunts countless employees, from startups to Fortune 500 giants. The result? They play it safe. And when playing it safe becomes the default, innovation dies. This culture of fear isn’t just an individual problem; it’s systemic. It’s why groundbreaking ideas never leave Slack threads, why innovation committees kill the most daring concepts, and why so many products end up as bland, uninspired versions of what they could have been.
Enter the failure-tolerant leader—someone who understands that failure is not the antithesis of success, but rather its unruly sibling. These leaders actively work to dismantle the fear of failure. They don’t just pay lip service to the idea of risk-taking; they create environments where it’s safe to try and fail, to stumble and learn. And they do this by shifting the narrative: failure isn’t a final verdict, but a valuable piece of feedback in the relentless pursuit of progress.
The answer isn’t just to shout from the rooftops that failure is okay. That’s empty rhetoric. So, what does a failure-tolerant leader look like in practice? It’s someone who views failure as an opportunity for growth, who engages with their team on a deeply personal level, discussing not just the what but the why behind every stumble. They ask questions like: Was this project well-conceived? Were the risks properly assessed? Were mistakes repeated due to negligence, or were they the result of pushing boundaries? They distinguish between excusable failures—those that arise from genuine efforts to innovate—and avoidable errors, which stem from carelessness or lack of preparation.
But this doesn’t mean abandoning control or letting standards slip. Quite the opposite. It means being more involved, not less. It means diving into the nitty-gritty of what went wrong, not to assign blame, but to understand and learn. Leaders like Jack Welch and Thomas Edison knew this well. They didn’t just tolerate failure; they embraced it as an essential part of the creative process. For them, failure wasn’t just a bump in the road—it was the road.
And here’s where it gets interesting: just as we should analyze failure, we should also scrutinize success. Success that comes from luck or happenstance is dangerous because it breeds complacency. It’s the equivalent of winning the lottery and thinking you’ve cracked the code to wealth. But success that’s the result of careful planning, relentless effort, and calculated risk-taking—that’s where the real lessons lie. Treating success and failure as two sides of the same coin shifts the focus from merely celebrating victories or lamenting defeats, to fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
Don Shula, the legendary NFL coach, had a philosophy that perfectly encapsulates this mindset: remain even-tempered in both victory and defeat. For Shula, every game was an opportunity to learn, regardless of the scoreboard. It’s a principle that failure-tolerant leaders would do well to adopt.
Successful failure-tolerant leaders replace judgement with engagement. They are more interested in the process than the outcome. They show up not to evaluate, but to explore. They foster innovation by being consistently curious, by listening more than they speak, and by encouraging their teams to think boldly, without the paralyzing fear of judgement hanging over them.
Failure is the crucible that tempers true leaders. When you’re in the trenches, leading a project or a team that’s falling apart at the seams, you’re not just learning about leadership—you’re experiencing it in its rawest, most unforgiving form. It’s tempting to think that once you’ve racked up enough failures, you’ll somehow graduate into a state of permanent competence. But here’s the thing: failure never really goes away. No matter how experienced you are, you’re still going to make mistakes. You’re still going to take risks that don’t pan out.
This brings us to a final, crucial point: leaders who admit their mistakes, who show vulnerability, are not weak—they’re relatable. They show that it’s okay to be human, to struggle, and to grow. Instead of pretending to be infallible, they show that vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness. People are more willing to take risks when they know their leaders have their backs, not just when things are going well, but especially when they aren’t.
We need more leaders like this—leaders who stop playing it safe, who stop pretending to be infallible, and who are willing to fail in pursuit of something better. The biggest risk isn’t failure—it’s a culture that’s too afraid to try.
PS: Measure your work-related stress - Take a quick assessment to quantify your stress levels and contribute to building an open dataset aimed at understanding workplace stress.