For most leaders, their biggest successes come from their biggest failures. Why? Because they understand the art of failing forward. So, they treat failure as a data point, not a stop sign, and they learn from their mistakes instead of being flattened by them.

This article will dive into what failing forward is, in all its glory. We’ll also explore how you can change your mindset to see failure as an opportunity with some real-life examples from around the world and history.

What Failing Forward Means

Many leaders respond to failure with blame, defensiveness, or a comprehensive post-mortem that leads to finger-pointing instead of results. But all of this can be avoided if you follow this simple formula, which doubles as a mantra for leadership:

Success = Failure + Persistence.

Take Thomas Edison back in the 1870s. His pursuit of a working electric light bulb involved nearly a thousand failed prototypes before he found a filament that held. This led to one of the best failing forward quotes ever:

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

Edison understood that failure wasn’t a verdict on his potential but information about his current (no pun intended) approach. He also knew that failing so often meant that he was operating at the edge of his capability, which is where real growth is unlocked.

As a result, he gave us a prime example of learning from failure and converting a setback into an advantage. He also gave us electricity as we know it today, so you know, he’s kind of a big deal.

Now, let’s go from Thomas Edison to leadership lessons from lobsters. As you do.

Ask a Lobster

Lobsters have hard, inelastic shells that protect them but do nothing to accommodate growth. So, as a lobster gets bigger, it eventually has no choice but to shed its shell entirely and grow a new one.

And in doing so, it grows by up to 15%.

However, during this molting process, the lobster is completely vulnerable with no protection and nowhere to hide. Yet, despite this dangerous situation, lobsters do it five or six times a year in their early lives, because the alternative is staying small inside a shell that no longer fits.

The same can be said of leaders. You can’t grow without shedding your shell or leaving your comfort zone, and doing so always carries risk. However, the rewards could be massive growth for you and your organization.

So, next time you’re worried about getting something wrong, channel your inner lobster. Which is a phrase you definitely weren’t expecting to hear today.

Now, let’s go to Japan and look at an ancient sword-based martial art.

The Kendo Principle and Failing Forward

In Kendo, the Japanese martial art of sword fighting, progressing from 7th Dan to 8th Dan is one of the most demanding achievements in any discipline. The average pass rate for the grading examination is less than 1 percent, so more than 99 percent of highly accomplished 7th Dans fail.

What’s more, the minimum waiting period before you can sit it again is ten years.

So, you dedicate a decade of serious, committed practice to your craft, walk into an exam knowing you will almost definitely fail it, fail, and then commit to another ten years before you can try again.

And when you do? The pass rate for the second time is still less than 1 percent.

Now, these people aren't delusional. They’re operating at the absolute top of their game, and failure is guaranteed for almost everyone. But despite this, they keep going. Why? Because the pursuit itself is the point, and failure is data to fuel progress.

Most leaders will (thankfully) never face odds like these. This makes it all the more interesting that so many find a missed target or a failed experiment inexcusable. Which, if they weren’t so disciplined and measured, would likely give a 7^th or 8^th Dan Kendo a chuckle.

Why Ranting and Raving Is the Real Failure

Failure and leadership are unavoidable, but when something goes wrong in your organization, your reaction is what’s important. Leaders who respond to failure with anger, blame, or visible disappointment, for example, create teams that hide problems and take fewer risks.

The cost of this can be enormous because issues become invisible bottlenecks that are difficult to identify and fix. This is why the most important currency of great leadership is truth, and the fastest way to devalue it is to make honesty feel dangerous.

It’s why the leaders who build innovative teams treat failure as a data point, not a crime scene. They ask what was learned, what can be done differently, and how the next attempt will be better. They’re intelligent about it, which brings us to our next nugget of advice.

Learn to Fail Intelligently

Don’t get us wrong: the goal of this article isn’t to encourage leaders to be careless in the hope of failing and learning something from it. Instead, you should be aiming for intelligent risk-taking, which is calculated, considered, and connected to learning.

Here are a few ways to do it:

Act, then adjust

Imperfect action, taken thoughtfully and reviewed honestly, beats perfect inaction every time.

Track what you learn, not just what you lose

Every outcome gives you new information. The leaders who extract that information are the ones who improve at a rate their competitors can't match.

Take risks that are worth taking

Not every idea deserves a full commitment of time and resources. Be strategic and encourage risk-taking if it’s viable or you see some value in it down the line.

Lead from the front

If you want your team to take intelligent risks, they need to see you doing the same.

Failing Forward: Final Thoughts

Failing forward is fundamental to growth as a leader. Embracing it is the difference, and understanding what you can take from every failure will take you far.

If you want to understand how your current mindset around challenge, growth, and development is showing up in your leadership, our Growth Mindset Profile Assessment is a practical place to start. It gives you an honest picture of where your mindset sits across the dimensions that matter most and where the biggest opportunities to develop are.