The Leadership Blog by Ann Vanino

In an article on business maxims that need to go, Alexander Kjerulf says failure happens, deal with it. He cites Peter Drucker’s provocative suggestion that businesses should find all employees who never make a mistake and fire them, because employees who never make mistakes never do anything interesting. How do you deal with failure or the prospect of failure? Your creativity can blossom when you accept the possibility of failure. Not doing so keeps you in a safe, not so interesting box. Failure can hurt you but when it occurs you can deal with it, get better at preventing it and go on. The positive side of failure is you learn to accept risk, you may discover new things and you join successful people who know failure is an option.

Create a pathway

Of leadership with respect

Goals met and all win

John Mayer’s song “Waiting on the World to Change” stays with me. I am a child of the 60s and was a social activist from a young age. “Waiting for the World to Change” states something new.

Me and all my friends

We’re all misunderstood

They say we stand for nothing and

There’s no way we ever could

Now we see everything that’s going wrong

With the world and those who lead it

We just feel like we don’t have the means

To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting, waiting on the world to change

Some may call this apathy, but I don’t. We had stars in our eyes and were full of passion in the 60s. We believed we could create the radical change we wanted to see in the world. Our zeal continues, but we’ve learned some things along the way. The system is pretty entrenched and meaningful change is hard to come by.

It’s not that we don’t care

We just know that the fight ain’t fair
~~~~~~

One day our generation

Is gonna rule the population

So we keep waiting on the world to change

How interesting to start here and not have stars in your eyes. If youth hold a place and desire that the world change and they keep waiting, maybe they will create a force that wins. I hope they do. We need them.

I recently read an article by Alexander Kjerulf about how a fear of firing restricts our freedom and happiness. He says that those who live in fear of being fired tend to:

• Take crap from management
• Follow unethical or immoral orders
• Stand for bullying or harassment
• Go along to get along
• Mask their real personalities
• Hide their real opinions
• Accept too low or unfair salaries
• Kiss butt
• Avoid complaining about any problems they see

Isn’t it true! Fear often sends your personal power right out the window. If your fear of being fired is high, your individuality, confidence, self expression and ability to defend yourself are severely diminished. Kjerulf offers some good advice on how to make being fired less of a problem including: increasing your employability, keeping your private expenses low, and not letting others force shame on you. This is really worth thinking about. Losing a fear of being fired can be liberating and free you to be your best self.