Episode 49 How to be comfortable with failure in your leadership career

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Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

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leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode 49.

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I'm so pleased you're here with me

and I'm feeling very excited today

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I'm recording this in advance because

when you are actually going to be

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listening to this, I'm going to

be in Spain on a business retreat.

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I'm so looking forward to spending

time with some other amazing coaches

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and just having four days to have

some fun, but also think about, , my

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coaching business, my coaching practice.

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And, the topic for today is kind of

linked to that because I was thinking

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about this and I've failed definitely

loads of times in my business, which

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I do talk about in this episode.

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And have had to get comfortable with

failure, and that's why this topic

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today is to help you as a female leader,

just get a bit more comfortable with

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things not going exactly to plan.

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And I'd love to know from you if you

find this episode helpful, so please do.

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Message me or leave a review,

that would be fantastic.

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I hope you enjoy just trying to

get a bit more comfortable with

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failure in your leadership career.

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I think it's something we don't talk

about enough because we don't want to.

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Feel vulnerable share

our failures necessarily.

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And I think as a leader, the more

senior we get in the organization.

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The more our appetite for failing reduces

because the stakes can feel higher.

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It feels riskier to fail because the

ripples can, you can feel that it's not

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just you, that it might impact your team,

it might impact your peers, it might

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impact the business in terms of results.

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And so failure feels a much

bigger, riskier thing to embark on.

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Are you willing to fail to try something

that might fail in your current career?

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Gimme a yes or a no.

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If you are thinking about doing something,

but you're holding back, holding yourself

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back 'cause you're worried about failing.

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I think it's important to talk about

it because I think that normalizes

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it . Lots of the people that I work

with, lots of the women leaders

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that I work with, , experience.

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A lot of the things we're gonna

talk about today in terms of why

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failure can , make us feel really

uncomfortable, , can feel really hard.

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And there's lots of things at play.

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It's very complex.

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When I was preparing for this session,

I was thinking, gosh, this is actually

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quite a few sessions worth, but I'm

gonna try and to sell it into one session

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with some practical things about how

you can get more comfortable with it.

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We've got external.

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Things that play into why we

feel uncomfortable about failure.

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That can be, what's the

organization that you are in,

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what's their approach to failure?

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Are they very risk averse?

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Does that can impact on how you

feel about experimenting with things

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that might not work first time?

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And also we've got all the internal

stuff, which is gonna be different

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for different people, but some of

this I'm sure will resonate with you.

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There's a lot of fear around failure.

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That could be fear around what other

people might think about you if you fail

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might be fear about what the implications

of failure might be for your career.

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And fear about exposing

yourself or the imposter.

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Feelings play in when you're

thinking about doing something

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that could make you vulnerable.

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Also that self-doubt and just

your general level of confidence.

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If you're not feeling hugely

confident in your career, then

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you are less likely to take risks.

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And we've got the whole risk

bias issue as well in that we all

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have a risk bias in our brain.

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But some people's risk bias is

high, which means you focus on the

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things that could go wrong more

than the things that could go right.

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And if you've got a high risk bias,

then you are less likely to want to

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pursue opportunities that could fail.

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Because you can see all the things that

could go wrong and where it might lead to.

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Then we've got our narrative, the

story we tell ourselves about failure.

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And this can be rooted in

our early experiences in

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childhood, in our early career.

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And that's the narrative we tell

ourselves before we embark on

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something that could be risky.

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And it could be, it's also the narrative

that we tell ourselves after that.

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Thing hasn't gone to plan.

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And that can be dangerous because

it can then impact our existing

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confidence in sense of self and

we're gonna come onto that as well.

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Then we've got the issues

around things like the cultural

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conditioning and gender expectations.

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Girls conditioned generally to be nice,

to please people to do the right thing.

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Play by the rules where boys are

encouraged to be more risky, to be bolder.

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And this can play into that deep fear

of failure because it threatens our

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identity of having to get things right,

which has been reinforced for us.

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And that's one of the

things that can also.

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Play into why we find

failure uncomfortable.

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We've also got the double bind

as female leaders in that we have

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to be strong, but not too strong.

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We have to be nice and warm and

welcoming, but not being seen as weak.

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And therefore failures can feel

more visible and more personal

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because we're already navigating

a lower margin of acceptability.

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, Women.

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Female leaders when they fail, can be

judged more harshly than their male

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counterparts, which could also play into

why you don't want to push yourselves to

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do things where it could end be failure.

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Then we've got this thing called

representation pressure, which is

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probably more unconscious, but where

there are fewer women in senior

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leadership, and therefore that burden

of representation can feel real.

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So that if we.

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Fail.

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We feel not that we are just failing in

terms of ourselves and letting ourselves

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down, we might also feel that it's a blow

to mis progress, which is a huge burden to

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carry around, even if the unconscious one.

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So you can see why the whole failure piece

can be really complicated and feel quite,

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tricky to navigate your way through it.

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I've failed a lot.

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I can hold my hand up.

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I haven't always been comfortable with

it and I haven't always learned from

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it particularly in my earlier career.

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But definitely in hr I've had

initiatives that have failed.

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I've had things that haven't landed well.

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I know there are things where I didn't

do the groundwork for those initiatives

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to be accepted and to be successful.

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I failed personally when I've gone

for interviews that I haven't got,

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when I felt that job was my job.

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I've done business launches in my

career that have failed, have bombed

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I've taken decisions which haven't.

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Delivered what I wanted them to

deliver, but I've put a lot of work

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in to get more comfortable with that.

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'cause in your business, you have to do

it because if you want your business to

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be successful, you have to take risks.

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So I have put the work in to be able

to see failure in a different way.

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And some of that I'm gonna

share with you today.

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Because there are benefits to failing

which might sound counterintuitive, but

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there are, because obviously we know that

we grow through experimentation, through

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failing as well as through success.

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It's lots of learning there in terms of

our personal development, if we stay in

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our comfort zone, that's a great place.

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It's comfortable room, but

it's, where we get stuck there.

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Move forward and grow.

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And also failing allows us to be clearer

about the path to success next time.

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Plus it helps us to develop stronger

risk resilience so that we know that we

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can cope if things don't go well, and

we can develop that resilience to enable

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us to have another go, to try something

again and increase our optimism about.

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The success that we're gonna have

next time because we've learned

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from the thing that didn't go well.

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Also as leaders, as female leaders, we

do need to role model experimentation and

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failure being okay to our teams to enable

them to grow, to increase their capability

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and their performance in the organization.

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To create a culture that enables people

to think, I can try this because the

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repercussions are not going to be me

losing my job if it doesn't go well.

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Because I know that will help

the business grow by me building

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my capability and skills.

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Obviously, building your team's

capability and skills is gonna enable

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the business to be more successful.

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So there are lots of benefits to failing,

so reasons to get comfortable with it.

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Now I'm gonna talk you through

four ways that you can experiment

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with to get more comfortable.

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Choosing the ones that are

gonna resonate most with you.

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The first one is to rewrite the failure

narrative, because what tends to happen

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when we fail is, and particularly for

women, is that we internalize that

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failure into an identity based failure.

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So I failed rather than something failed.

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Rather than seeing it as situational.

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Event, something that happened that

didn't work well we internalize it and

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we might say things like, I messed up.

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I failed.

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I'm terrible at this.

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I let them down.

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Rather than saying, that strategy

didn't land I'm still learning

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this scale, or, I'm human.

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We all make decisions with the

best information we have at time.

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So being able to place it in the

external context of the situation failed

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rather than I failed, can be a really

powerful way of getting more comfortable

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with it and protecting our internal

self-identity or internal confidence.

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Not letting that failure erode that

'cause we don't want that to happen.

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'cause otherwise you start to see

yourself as somebody who fails.

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We want to see ourselves as somebody who

experiments and learns from that and can

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understand the situation and the impact

of that situation on that success or not.

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If you start to notice you are using

I to describe the failure as in,

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I failed, I messed up, et cetera.

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You want to be able to flip that

to let me understand the situation,

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what went wrong with that situation,

what didn't land, what didn't

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happen, rather than it being I.

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It's not about absolving

responsibility, it's about not

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letting it become an identity crisis,

and eroding your inner confidence.

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The second thing is to understand

the neuroscience of failure

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because failure is wired.

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Like a threat for the brain.

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And we know our brain cannot distinguish

between physical danger and social risk.

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And social risk, is around failure,

rejection, all those things.

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And what happens is that our

amygdala and our limbic brain, it's

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activated when it senses a threat.

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And that's that fight

flight or freeze response.

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And what we want to be able to do is

to recognize that's what's happening.

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Recognizing that anxiety that

you're feeling is a response to

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the limbic brain being activated

and to be able to use tools to calm

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yourself down in that situation.

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So naming it is part of that.

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Okay.

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I know that I'm being triggered

here and that's why I'm

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feeling this level of anxiety.

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And what I might need to do then is

to do some breathing exercises or

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some mindfulness meditation techniques

if that's what works for you, or to

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think about engaging the prefrontal

cortex of the brain through things

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like coaching, journaling, reflection

that help move it from an emotional

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response in the limbic system into

a more logical processing response.

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And that will then help you to respond to.

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The failure or whatever's gone

wrong in a much more considered way.

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Being able to notice what's going

on, to understand the neuroscience

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of failure and to be able to

respond to it in a logical way.

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Then the third approach is tapping

into positive psychology and seeing

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failure as a route to flourishing.

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And that tips into what I was

mentioning earlier about it

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helps us to build resilience.

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It helps us also to build that grit,

that tenacity, that perseverance to

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know that actually this failure is

part of me being successful in the long

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run and flourishing and growing and

seeing it as an opportunity for growth.

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That can be asking yourself great

coaching and reflection questions.

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Things like, what did I discover

about myself in that situation?

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What values were I connecting with when

I made that decision or that choice?

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And, what's the growth that

this opportunity is giving me?

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So being able to position it, using

questions like that can turn it from

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failure into it's part of my journey and

I'm going to use it in a productive way.

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And then the fourth thing

is to build self-compassion.

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And we need self-compassion as

female leaders because we tend to go

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to that inner critic that beats us

up, that taps into that, narrative

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that's about you failing, you being

rubbish, you messing up all of that.

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And what we want to do is to think

about, to really youthful question,

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is to think about what would I say

to my friend who's just experienced

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that particular failure at work?

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You're not gonna say to that

friend, you are rubbish.

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Why on earth did you do that?

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How stupid of you, you're gonna

be saying something that's more

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compassionate about, at least you tried.

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It's an opportunity to learn.

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Think about what you can take from

this situation and you were brave and

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courageous to try that out and think

about changing that inner self-talk

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to a more compassionate world.

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And you can also use.

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Physical symbols for self-compassion.

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So research shows that , , even

just stroking your hand can activate

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the soothing system in the brain,

or giving yourself a her way.

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Again, soothing yourself can be

a way to activate that soothing

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system in the brain that helps you

to feel better about the situation.

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Thinking about those four

different approaches and what you

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might want to experiment with.

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We've got rewriting that failure

narrative from an identity based

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failure to a situational based failure.

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Understanding the neuroscience of

failure that you are going to be

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potentially triggered by that because

the brain sees it as a threat.

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And then putting some techniques in

place to help you move from emotional,

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to a more logical response to failure.

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To recognize failure in the

terms of positive psychology.

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That's an opportunity for growth.

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To build resilience, to build

tenacity and perseverance, and

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then to build self-compassion

into your failure strategy.

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What I would always say to you if

you're thinking about experimentation

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here, is to start small.

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Choose something where there is a

chance that you might fail, but it's

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a small chance it has low risk where

you can build up your risk resilience.

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You can then move closer

to taking bigger risks.

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In the business.

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When I say risks, this is all in terms

of understanding the risk and managing

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it and being able to understand what

the the implications might be of the

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decisions that you're making, but

starting small and build it up to it.

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And I want to leave you with a great

quote which I love in terms of failure.

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It's from Michael Jordan, the basketball

player, and he said, I've missed

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more than 9,000 shots in my career.

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I've lost almost 300 games, 26 times.

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I've been trusted to take the

game winning shot and missed.

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I've failed over and over again in

my life, and that's why I succeed.

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I think that's just such a powerful

quote and approach to failure.

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I really hope you're gonna take

something positive away from today's

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session that's gonna help you feel more

comfortable as a leader around failure.

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And if there's anything I've touched on

today that you think I would really value

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some coaching support to go deeper into

some of this and look at how I can embrace

283

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failure and stop holding myself back

in terms of my career or my leadership

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approach, then please do get in touch

with me for a career breakthrough call if

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that's something you feel would be useful.

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We can have a 30 minute call to look at.

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What you might need to do to move

closer to feeling more comfortable

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with failure in your leadership career.

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Thank you very much for joining me.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co

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uk, and I'll also put

links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of more

than you know, shine brightly.

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Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

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Be unstoppable.