Getting Back on Track After a Leadership Failure | Leading from the Library; Library Journal, 5/6/15

Steven Bell, Library Journal; Getting Back on Track After a Leadership Failure | Leading from the Library:

"Fail often to succeed, we are told. Good advice, perhaps, if we are exploring new services or products. When leaders fail often, or perhaps even just once, recovery is difficult if not impossible. Leaders can learn from their failures and move on.

A colleague contacted me to ask if I would contribute to her book project. Targeted for emerging managers and leaders, the book would present a series of scenarios or case studies of difficult leadership situations. The contributors would write responses in which they offered solutions or suggestions to address that particular scenario. It reminded me a bit of the “How Do You Manage” case studies that Library Journal used to publish in every issue. My scenario related the sad tale of a rising leader who takes on a team project for the first time. It’s a dismal failure. For sure, this leader made multiple serious errors in managing colleagues and timelines. But my verdict was that the administrator who put our new leader in charge was guilty of negligent mismanagement and absentee leadership. How often this actually happens is a mystery, but I suspect it’s more often than we think. Owing to space constraints I had no room to continue with the next logical challenge. How does that administrator help get their emerging leader back on track after what is sure to be a confidence weakening experience? That’s why a report on leader failure and what to do about it caught my attention."