failing forward · failing forward william pullen 14 september 2018 adversity is a fact of life and...

Failing Forward

William Pullen 14 September 2018

Adversity is a fact of life and leaders who are more resilient have a better chance of recovering from it by learning how to Fail Forward. Adversity develops when temporary setbacks or longer-term conditions change the fit between an individual and their environment. Performance deteriorates when leadership capabilities no longer meet changed expectations. When fit is lost, the possibility of derailing develops; the upward progression of a professional career is halted. It may become a plateau or a decline and may end in a departure from a role or organization. The human cost can be considerable, and some research suggests that the financial cost to an organization of an executive derailing is about 14 x Base Salary. The characteristic that best explains why derailing occurs is a lack of self-awareness that impairs a leader’s ability to recalibrate their behaviours and re-establish a durable fit with their world. Research suggests that 30% to 50% of high-potential leaders derail at some time during their career. Derailing is a traumatic event that may result in moral injury. However, recovery is possible, and this paper concludes with some ideas about how to do it and recover from the trauma associated with it.

William Pullen - 14 September 2018 ÓUniversity of Ottawa 2018

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Table of Contents

Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Context: The Arc of a Career ................................................................................................................................ 3 Part A: Adversity and Resilience ................................................................................................................... 5

The Adversity Spectrum ............................................................................................................................... 5 A Leader’s Response ..................................................................................................................................... 5 The Resilient Leader ..................................................................................................................................... 6 Leadership Concerns .................................................................................................................................... 6 When to Respond ......................................................................................................................................... 7

Immediate Response to Setbacks: Find and Fix the Root Cause .............................................................. 7 Maintain Momentum: Pivot, Side-Step or Push Through Adverse Conditions ........................................ 8

Leading during Setbacks and Adverse Conditions ........................................................................................ 8 Leadership Presence ................................................................................................................................. 9 A Leader’s Personal Actions .................................................................................................................. 10

Concluding Thoughts ................................................................................................................................. 11 Part B: Derailing ......................................................................................................................................... 12

Derailing Happens ..................................................................................................................................... 12 Career Themes Leading to Derailing ......................................................................................................... 12 Career Progression and Derailing .............................................................................................................. 13 What Causes Derailment? ......................................................................................................................... 13 Derailing is Preventable ............................................................................................................................. 14 Concluding Thoughts ................................................................................................................................. 15

Part C: Recovery from the Trauma of Derailing .......................................................................................... 16

Derailing as Moral Injury ........................................................................................................................... 16 Recovery from Trauma .............................................................................................................................. 17 Phase 1 – Finding Safety & Stability .......................................................................................................... 17 Phase 2 – Making Sense of the Experience, Finding a new normal ........................................................... 18 Phase 3 – Reconnection, Repair and Integration ...................................................................................... 18 Good Recovery Practice ............................................................................................................................ 19 When to seek professional help ................................................................................................................ 19 Manage your Narrative ............................................................................................................................. 20 Concluding Thoughts ................................................................................................................................. 20


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Failing Forward

Introduction

Senior public servants in leadership roles are typically at, or beyond, the mid-point of their career. They have arrived at this point because of demonstrated professional or technical proficiency and, usually, significant supervisory or managerial experience. To mangle a phrase used by Warren Bennis, they have learned how to do things right, and are now challenged to do the right thing. In a perfect world, a leadership career unfolds as a smooth uninterrupted progression of successful experiences at increasingly greater levels of responsibility until leaders reach an apex and transition to a different way of life. But, this trajectory that rarely happens. There are speed-bumps, off-ramps and obstacles that must be navigated. Instead, a career is more like a series of Knights moves in Chess - a zig-zag pattern of different experiences that carry a leader upward. It is a fact that adverse events occur in every career and they alter its trajectory. The zig may be a promotion to a new role and the zag may be a move to a different field. And often an adverse event occurs, or a condition develops that interrupts this pattern. This paper offers thoughts on the nature of adversity and its consequences for resilience with the idea of helping leaders to understand the experience as a learning opportunity. The chances of future career success can be improved by learning how to Fail Forward.

Context: The Arc of a Career

Adversity occurs within the context of a career and it would be useful to have a way to describe the arc and its trajectory. Consider the diagram below:

Careers are not destinations, but rather journeys with a past, a present and a future. They are an arc of a person’s lifeline. The journey is punctuated by events, some good and some bad, that offer lessons on how to do things right, or do the right thing. These are marker events - the orange shapes along the red career arc in the diagram above.


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Over time, the arc becomes a leader’s track record that describes the breadth and depth of their experience, including successes or failures. It extends into the present where a leader is defined by reputation, based in part on their track record, but also on their character and leadership presence as it is perceived by those who work with them. It extends into the future as a leadership brand – the implicit potential value that a leader offers to bring to a new situation, which may be a movement upward or laterally. Adversity occurs from circumstance or through neglected development. An adverse event may appear suddenly that off-balances and sets a leader on their back foot. Or, they may find they cannot respond successfully with what they have in their toolbox, or because their energy is depleted and they lack the willpower to persevere. The nature of adversity and resilience is discussed in Part A As obstacles or difficult situations develop, a leader may realize that what they have in their leadership repertoire may be insufficient for the situation they are in. In the words of Marshall Goldsmith, “what got you here, won’t get you there.” When this happens, the ‘fit’ between an individual and the role they perform deteriorates. If fit is lost, and having ignored or avoided opportunities for personal development, leaders may find themselves at a loss as to how to respond successfully. Nothing seems to work for them and performance deteriorates. In these situations, derailing occurs. This phenomenon will be discussed more fully in Part B. Recovery from the trauma of derailing is discussed in Part C

Derailing

When a manager who was expected to go higher in the organization and who was judged to have the ability to do so is fired, demoted, or plateaued below expected levels of achievement.

Lombardo & McCauley (1988)


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Part A: Adversity and Resilience Resilience is the ability to recover from adversity. It is a personal capacity to deal well with daily speedbumps as well as handling life-changing events. This first part of Failing Forward talks about the nature of adversity, the precursor situation that forms the context for resilience. It looks at it through two lenses: the leader as a resilient individual dealing with adversity and the leader of an organization coping with it.

The Adversity Spectrum

The term adversity covers a range of situations. There are temporary setbacks, adverse conditions and chronic suffering. Each demand something slightly different from a leader as an individual and one in charge of others. A setback is a single event or distinct series of events that impedes forward progress, either as a person or an organization. Setbacks are usually one-time, one-of-a-kind occurrences. Not making the short-list for a promotion, the departure of a key member of your management team, or a sudden change in program funding would all be setbacks. The shock of a negative event has not defeated you but has caused you to pull back and regroup. An adverse condition is an ongoing unfavourable situation that is harder to work through. Working with a bad boss for any length of time can create a serious adverse condition. Poor relationships with, say, the Minister’s office or a key stakeholder, may make sustained progress painful. Long-standing internal conflict can cause morale to decline and momentum can be lost. Serious adverse conditions can cause derailing and lead to organizational failure. Adverse conditions can become chronic. Long-standing adversity is suffering and can cause permanent distress. It may impose spiritual, moral, emotional, and physical harm that causes significant personal trauma. Suffering marks people and recovery from it is a long and painful process.

A Leader’s Response

As you might expect, setbacks and adverse conditions require different responses from leaders. A setback often needs a quick and specific response. It’s as if something suddenly appeared in your path. You stop and find another way to get where you want to go. If the setback is significant, it may take some concerted effort and skill to keep the organization on track and moving beyond whatever has happened. The effects of setbacks, however, are limited in time: once dealt with, you can move on. Adversity is more like a long drive in bad winter weather: you’ll need a steady focus on traffic and the road’s condition until the journey is over. Your concentration is on getting everyone safely to the end of the journey. That’s what leaders do: keep things moving steadily forward through difficulty and bring the rest of the organization along.


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The Resilient Leader

Leaders who recover quickly from personal or professional difficulties typically are well grounded. That is, they have a strong sense of who they are, comfort with what that means, and confidence in their ability to exert influence on events even if it is only minor. They have a well-formed stable identity and see events in context. They are level-headed and use patience, tolerance, and humour to deal with adversity. Resilient leaders are action-oriented and know the value of momentum toward their goals even if it is only the smallest of steps. They don’t get stuck. They use prior experience in dealing with difficulties to confront a current challenge. They are adaptable and can convert lessons from the past into effective responses to the present. Resilient leaders are glass half-full people. Unlike pessimists who see negative events as personal, pervasive and permanent, resilient leaders see them as transient, specific, and impersonal. They explain things in a positive way and add energy to the situation. They have a realistic and well-founded faith in their ability to deal with things. They are also well-connected. They have a network of strong relationships to draw on that can help them rebound and recover. Resilient leaders know themselves. They are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and know their blind spots and over-done strengths. Much of this insight is hard-won from earlier experiences that did not go so well. They understand that good judgment come from experience, and that experience comes from poor judgment. They have learned whatever lesson was to be learned from it and have added to their repertoire.

Leadership Concerns

Although it may seem that every day contains setbacks and that adversity has become the new “normal,” there are some important reasons why a leader needs to confront these events and conditions. • Maintain Momentum: Setbacks and adversity, if they’re not handled properly, can stop an individual and

organization from moving forward, and even move it backwards. Regardless of how difficult life may be at a given time, individuals and organizations must keep moving toward their goals; the personal commitment to a goal must be sustained. The time and effort needed to re-start a stalled organization can be costly and require resources for recovery that may not always be available.

• Avoid Despair: When bad things happen, it affects attitudes. People explain setbacks in ways that can be

draining and invite despair. The attitude can quickly spread to others and a general malaise sets in as Doom Loops become the dominant conversational style. Productivity declines and momentum is lost. Leaders need to find ways to convince people that “this too shall pass” and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

• Sustain Morale: It is not enough to prevent despair. If the organization or the team is to continue to do

good work then people must retain their interest and sustain their commitment to the mission. A leader can set the tone by demonstrating their own passion for the work and by encouraging everyone to do their best, despite any difficulties that might appear.

• Maintain Public Confidence: For a public organization, a taproot requirement is that the public (clients,

partners and stakeholders) continue to believe in what the organization does. Responding well to setbacks or adversity helps maintain credibility in two ways. First, by maintaining a high standard of


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performance it confirms that you are an effective organization. Second, if the public is aware of challenges, a successful response demonstrates competence, commitment and resolution.

• Help the Organization Learn: Setbacks and adversity often present the best opportunities for

learning. When you’ve run into trouble, whether through your own doing or because of outside forces, you’ve learned something valuable, and can usually figure out how to avoid that trouble in the future. Finding a way out of your present trouble also leads to lessons learned that will strengthen your organization over the long term.

• Learn and Grow as a Leader: Setbacks and adversity are important parts of the crucible that helps to

form and transform leaders. Each time you have to deal with difficulties, you gain new knowledge and new skills, personal as well as professional. Being tested in this way is how good leaders become great leaders.

• Maintain an Organization’s Faith in its Leadership: Setbacks and adversity are where true leadership

shows itself. If you can handle a difficult situation or condition and keep things on an even keel, your organization will be more likely to follow you anywhere. If you fall apart when things don’t go smoothly, you’ll have much less credibility as a leader in the future.

• Maintain the Focus on the Mission: The purpose of your organization is to serve the public in whatever

way legislation or policy requires. When faced with setbacks or adversity, it’s vital to not become distracted by misfortune but to continue to pursue your vision for the organization and the mission that has been given to it.

When to Respond

When should a leader work to overcome setbacks and adverse conditions? The question here is one of time, rather than timing. Setbacks and adverse conditions each require a different kind of time sense from a leader.

Immediate Response to Setbacks: Find and Fix the Root Cause

In the case of a setback, action to recover should usually be immediate, and geared specifically to removing the obstacle or reversing the situation, whatever it is. What can you do to turn things around and find yourself in the positive column again? If something you’ve worked for simply isn’t going to happen, you should find a new goal that’s related to the one that just got away. Use what you’ve just learned in the current situation to make sure you reach it. When the situation is reversible, quickly try to turn it around. If an evaluation reveals that your approach isn’t working, determine what’s at fault – find the root cause: the approach itself, the way you’re implementing it, cultural differences between staff and participants, etc. – and fix it as quickly as possible. That may mean anything from a minor change in method to a complete overhaul of a program. Whatever it entails, it usually needs to be done as soon as possible, before ineffectiveness causes it permanent damage. If you act quickly and decisively enough, you can turn a setback into a victory. At the very least, you can keep it from paralyzing your organization and seriously harming your strategic interests.


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Maintain Momentum: Pivot, Side-Step or Push Through Adverse Conditions

With adverse conditions, your action may be longer term and ongoing. You’re working to overcome not a single event, but a set of conditions: it may take a while and call for various kinds and levels of action. The important factor here is perseverance – you keep at it until things get better. Sometimes an adverse situation can call for quick action like a side-step to move around it to keep it from getting worse, but generally it requires steadiness and a commitment to push ahead and move forward regardless of the difficulty. Sometimes, there are obvious ways to forge ahead: making cuts, reducing service levels, etc. By focusing on operations, you may find ways to change the adverse conditions you are experiencing. Slow and steady generally wins the race here. Your actions as a leader don’t have to be quick or flashy – unless the situation calls for it, as it might in the case of an emergency, but they do have to keep the organization moving toward its long-term goals and the goal of overcoming its adverse circumstances. Sometimes, even in the case of a setback, the best course is to take the time you need to understand the situation before you take specific action to counter it. It’s important to act but it doesn’t necessarily have to be directly related to resolving the immediate problem to have a positive effect on the organization. Delaying too long isn’t a good idea, but taking enough time to ensure that you’re going in the right direction might be, if the circumstances call for it. If you don’t quite know yet what the best course of action is, it may be wise to step back and analyze your options before you commit yourself.

Leading during Setbacks and Adverse Conditions

As a leader, you have special responsibilities in difficult times. No matter what style of leader you are – even, or perhaps especially, if you’re highly collaborative – people will look to you to see how they should react to the situation, and to find out what to do. They’ll expect you to be present and to guide them through what may be an unsettling or even frightening period. If you fall apart, or make it clear you have no idea what to do, the organization can easily fall into despair or worse, your credibility will be damaged and your reputation as a leader will erode, perhaps never to return. In the worst case, your credibility is destroyed and your legitimacy collapses. Recovery from this condition is nearly impossible. On the other hand, if you approach setbacks and adverse conditions as opportunities for growth, you can keep your organization stable and you can also move it forward. Even if you make mistakes – perhaps especially if you do – the experience can lead to a greater understanding of your situation and your work, and help to advance the organization. Even if it is not a crisis, any setback or adverse situation presents both danger and opportunity. If you keep opportunity in the foreground, the chances are good that you’ll easily overcome or skirt the danger by moving the organization to another level. Although setbacks and adverse conditions may call for slightly different approaches, there are some general leadership guidelines that may be useful for both. The first section refers to how a leader should present themselves and behave in difficult circumstances. The second suggests ways in which they might change the situation.


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Leadership Presence

• Move to the Centre & Own the Space: When things go south, people look to leaders for meaning and intentions. As a leader, you want to move to the center of the social mass in your organization, the place where informal networks intersect, own that space and become a rallying point for the organization. With skill, you can convert the rallying point to a pivot and refocus the organization to move around the setback or redirect it through the adverse condition.

• Stay Calm: It’s essential that you maintain a calm and confident manner, no matter how difficult or bleak

the situation may seem. Everyone else will key on you: if you are at the center and stay calm and appear in control, the rest of the organization will as well. If you panic or seem harried, the rest of the organization will imitate that too. Then you’ll have two adverse situations to deal with: the original one, and the mood of panic in the organization.

The other obvious reason for staying calm is that it will allow you to assess the situation and decide what to do about it. If you're panicking or thrown off by the seriousness of whatever you must cope with, you’re not likely able to think clearly and make good decisions. This advice works for setbacks and adverse conditions. In the case of a setback, panic, while it might be appropriate, will disrupt important work, cause employees to lose heart, and make it that much more difficult to reverse, manage, or prevent whatever damage the original event might cause. In a long-term adverse situation, calmness a leader’s calm presence gives confidence that someone’s in control and knows how to get through the difficulty.

• Communicate: Let everyone know exactly what’s going on, and keep them informed as the situation

develops. If you don’t, gossip and rumours will take the place of real information, and panic may set in. The stories that people make up about crises are usually worse than the reality. Even if they’re not, not knowing what’s going on is generally far more frightening than knowing the truth, even when the truth is unpleasant.

• Take Action - Do something – it’s crucial that people see that someone is taking charge and addressing the situation. When your organization has just experienced a setback, it’s important to establish the fact that both you, as a leader, and the organization will be active – you won’t wait for something positive to happen, you’ll make something positive happen to offset the blow you’ve just received. Whatever steps you take, take them as soon as possible because it’s important that both you and the organization choose your course and follow it, rather than letting events or external forces choose it for you.

• Find and Fix the Root Cause: Were you or the organization responsible for the situation? If you are, then that’s your responsibility. If your program proved ineffective, that’s the organization’s responsibility. Whatever the case, you must be fearlessly honest in assessing the situation, so that you can understand how to fix things and, more importantly, learn how not to allow it to happen again.

• Develop a Plan: This plan should cover the whole organization, even if the setback or adverse

circumstances only affect part of it, and should include a way to keep the current situation from recurring. If it’s caused by something beyond your control, look for a way to take over control of that area.

• Involve Everyone: Involving everyone in the recovery planning process will engage more talent and

produce better ideas. If employees are engaged they’ll take ownership of the plan and work hard to


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make it succeed. More important, people feel a great deal less helpless when they can be part of the solution to a problem.

• Ask for Help: If there isn’t the expertise or knowledge within the organization to address the situation,

there are others out there who can help. This is where the real value of a professional network becomes evident. Chances are, somebody has had a similar experience and drawing on their expertise will provide fresh insight as well as possibly generating more support for your efforts.

• Emphasize Moving Forward: Any organization, whether it’s struggling or highly successful, must keep

developing and striving to improve if it’s to become or remain effective. You may have been pushed back, or you may be stalled by adverse circumstances, but your momentum should always be forward, rather than just to retain or regain ground. Everyone in the organization should be concentrating on the future and on moving ahead, as well as on coping with current troubles. That will both keep everyone focused on the organization’s real goal – fulfilling its mission – and put it in a better position to overcome present problems and prevent future ones.

A Leader’s Personal Actions

• Find the Win: Keep things upbeat and focused on what’s going right, not what’s going wrong. You can’t ignore the problem or the difficult situation, but it is not all that is happening. Emphasizing the positive will strengthen morale and keep the organization heading in the right direction. Build on strengths, rather than expending energy trying to correct weaknesses.

• Share the Burden: Effective leaders ensure they live under the same conditions as their people, to

emphasize that they’re all in it together, and that they wouldn’t ask anyone to endure hardship without enduring the same hardship themselves. This kind of action and attitude strengthens your credibility as a leader, and increases the dedication with which staff members and volunteers will work to improve the situation.

• Use the Situation to Strengthen the Organization: Nobody can do it all by themselves. People must work

together and support one another. You may be able to increase morale and dedication to one another and the organization by emphasizing that fact. The more you back up your words by involving everyone in finding solutions to problems and in helping one another, the more likely it is that the organization will come out the other side stronger than before.

• Provide Support: Find ways for people to talk about the current situation, and to work through feelings

of frustration or powerlessness. They need to know that you support them and appreciate what they do, and they need to support one another, so that no one feels that they’re trying to cope with a tough situation alone.

That includes you, as a leader. You don’t have to – and shouldn’t – bear the whole weight of the organization on your shoulders. Find a source of support for yourself – a mentor, coach or trusted colleague - who can listen to and empathize with your frustrations and exhaustion, and remind you of what you’re doing right.

• Treat it as a Teachable Moment: What you’ve learned as a result of this event(s) can be a valuable tool

for the future. This isn’t the last time you’ll face a setback or an adverse condition. You’ve used what you learned in the past to approach the current situation, and you can use what you’ve learned from this one to address situations that arise in the future. Use the setback as a teachable moment and ensure that


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everyone in the organization understands the lessons of the current situation, and records it in some way so it will be remembered after you and others involved in it have left.

• Keep the Big Picture in Mind: Remember that this situation is probably only temporary. Don’t allow it to

cloud your vision or derail your strategy. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to keep the organization focused on its main goals. You can do that by always steering the organization toward problem-solving strategies and actions that are consistent with its larger vision and mission, and constantly checking that any steps you take are aimed at those ends. If you weather a setback by violating the basic principles of the organization, you haven’t succeeded in overcoming an obstacle. Rather, you’ve let adversity shape your organization into something it wasn’t meant to be.

• Don’t Let Up: Even after the situation has changed for the better, continue working to ensure that you

don’t fall into the same circumstances again. Many of the guidelines above are just as valuable when things are going well as they are when you’re facing setbacks or adversity: staying calm, communicating within the organization, moving forward, accentuating the positive, being honest about mistakes, planning – these are highly desirable traits in a leader, and highly desirable characteristics in an organization.

Concluding Thoughts

The real measure of leaders comes when things aren’t going well. How they handle setbacks and longer-term adversity determines both how good a leader they are, and how others view their leadership. Remember that the events are distinct and make different demands on leaders. The first often responds to quick and decisive action, the second to a steady style of leadership that keeps long-term goals in view. In either case, leaders must provide real leadership by projecting calmness and competence, keeping the organization focused on the future, communicating well, providing emotional support, and involving people in resolving the problems that have led to the current situation. Overcoming setbacks and adversity requires continuing effort even after the immediate difficulty is left behind, to make sure a similar situation doesn’t place the organization in jeopardy again.


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Part B: Derailing The careers of leaders are rarely straight lines moving ever-upward from success to success. Speedbumps, off-ramps, swerves and slippery conditions appear. Sometimes this leads to derailing, the phenomenon of a leader not achieving expected potential, becoming plateaued, or leaving a job or organization. This part of Failing Forward offers thoughts on derailing, so leaders can understand better what causes it and think of mitigating its risk.

Derailing Happens

Derailing is quite common. The research in this area suggests that 30% to 50% of high-potential leaders and executives will derail at some time during their career Derailing is experienced by individuals as a slow-motion train-wreck. A series of adverse events occurs, an adverse condition develops, and the individual often senses that fit has been lost, that something is very wrong and that it is becoming a crisis, but for a variety of reasons is powerless to understand it or act to change it. They may be trapped in an outdated personal definition of a role, they may have ignored warning signs, or dismissed feedback suggesting that a change is needed. For previously successful leaders, the personal trauma is significant, and the consequences of derailing at senior levels can be magnified as aftershocks ramify across the culture and affect the social networks through which the organization is managed. Derailing can seriously affect organizational performance and possibly lead to failure. The act of derailing appears in different ways. People become overwhelmed but resist feedback, relationships change, access to information dries up, networks close down, energy dissipates, and distance appears that isolates the person from their usual social space and its web of connections with the organization. It is as if the individual no longer fits with the world that they thought they were part of. They become invisible, and the experience of derailing becomes an elephant in the room. Everyone knows it is happening or has happened, yet nobody wants to talk about it, and the derailer is ignored or sidelined. Where there was once engagement and collaboration, there is now opacity and silence. You are alone.

Career Themes Leading to Derailing

There are contrasts between successful leaders and derailers. Successful leaders succeed in a variety of functions, where derailers succeed in one. Effective leaders have a variety of mentors, derailers have only one. Successful leaders are composed, confident, and articulate, whereas derailers are irritable under pressure and defensive over failures. Successful leaders get along with people. Derailers struggle with relationships. The research identifies six themes in a leader’s track record likely to cause derailment:

Organizational Interpersonal

• A narrow technical or functional experience base. • Failure to meet business objectives. • Difficulty making strategic decisions.

• Problems with relationships at senior levels. • Inability to build and lead a team. • Inability to develop or adapt during a transition.


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Career Progression and Derailing

Executives who derail have typically had important successes early in their careers and were viewed as technical experts. As they moved up and job demands changed, some early strengths became weaknesses, and some early weaknesses began to matter. Executive jobs successively demand more and different skills and perspectives. The many reasons for derailing almost always includes failure to adapt a leadership repertoire to new circumstances: • Intelligent leaders become intellectually arrogant, dismissive, devaluing of others. • Likeable leaders become indecisive and risk adverse. • Focused leaders develop tunnel vision and a narrow perspective. • Ambitious leaders become manipulative and self-serving. Committed leaders become workaholics. • Passionate leaders become dominating, reactive and excessively emotional. • Leaders with strong people skills become hesitant, need to be liked, or won’t make tough calls. • Experienced leaders become rigid and close-minded. Confident leaders become arrogant. • Charismatic leaders become manipulative, self-serving and deceptive. • Driven leaders become indifferent to people and are ruthless. • Strategic leaders with vision become disconnected from reality.

What Causes Derailment?

Study after study has found that self-awareness is a key factor associated with performance and potential and is an indicator of long-term career success. Factors such as cognitive ability, motivation, and experience are important, but lack of self-awareness best explains derailing. Self-awareness is understanding your strengths and weakness and being able to act on these insights to stay on track. Barriers to self-awareness take several forms. Blind spots are weaknesses leaders can’t see in themselves, even though evident to those around them. Incomplete understanding of weaknesses may cause leaders to over-estimate their own strengths. Undervalued strengths are skills that leaders underestimate compared to how others see them.

Blind Spots Under-Estimated Weaknesses Undervalued strengths Making tough people calls Demonstrating personal flexibility Creating the new and different

Doesn’t inspire or build talent Too narrow outlook Can’t relate well to others

Managing up Understanding the business Making complex decisions

An interesting aspect of self-awareness is the Kruger-Dunning Effect. In four studies, the authors found that people tended to hold overly favourable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this over-estimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden; not only do they reach erroneous conclusions about their abilities and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. The studies showed that, paradoxically, improving skills increased an ability for people to recognize what they did not know or could not do, and this helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.


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Derailing is Preventable

Derailing is a developmental issue. It is caused by behaviours and most recovery solutions are found in some form of human development such as feedback, coaching or mentoring. Derailment can be prevented, and studies show that individuals and organizations have options to mitigate risk when leadership failure occurs. The text box shows four levels of failure and the generic fix associated with each level. In this paper, we are primarily concerned with the white space between failure in judgment and failure in character. This is where derailing begins and ends. In this space, action to prevent derailing begins with the organization determining that it is unwilling to tolerate the behaviour causing derailment. Next, the person in question must believe this to be the case. A derailer’s understanding of their circumstance must change and awareness of their impact on others improve. This is the starting point for recovery or departure. Organizations can take systematic steps to prevent derailing. First, performance management programs should be designed to help leaders become more self-aware and understand aspects of their make-up that can lead to derailment, so they can take proactive responsibility for them. Regular multi-rater feedback is a good way to do this. Another is more frequent performance feedback. Second, the talent management system in an organization needs to incorporate rigorous hiring practices to screen new-hires for derailment factors. The table following lists eight factors that can be assessed during recruiting or staffing. This can be complemented with effective onboarding, especially at senior levels and in critical jobs.

Eight Derailment Factors for Assessment

Hyper-sensitivity and emotionally reactive Isolation and pronounced introversion Eccentric behaviour and off-beat style Iconoclasm, moving against cultural values

Exhibitionism and narcissistic outlook Over-confidence in own abilities Over-dependence on others Micro- management

Third, executive development programs be designed to address the blind spots, weaknesses and under-valued strengths that can lead to derailing. Fourth, developmental programs should be supplemented with ongoing coaching and mentoring that includes frequent informal feedback on performance.

Four Levels of Leadership Failure

• Failure in Knowledge - not having the understanding needed to perform the task. Fix: provide training.

• Failure in Skill - not having the ability to perform the task. Fix: provide training.

• Failure in Judgment - not having the experience needed to make good decisions. Fix: provide experience.

• Failure in Character - not having the moral strength and ethics needed - fire or shuffle out.


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Concluding Thoughts

An important personal recovery choice is to fail fast and avoid a prolonged decline. The idea is not to let failure become a pervasive and permanent adverse condition but instead to see it as a contained temporary setback that offers an opportunity to learn about yourself and make appropriate changes. Failure and the recovery from it become like the sides of a crucible, a place of great pressure where character reconfigures, is annealed and a new leader emerges who can do things differently. Failure creates the crucible that enables change and recovery - it contains the inflexion point where you decide to get back in the game and move forward. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, failure always brings with opportunity and the freedom to take intelligent risks and experiment with new ideas and approaches. The best advice is to Fail forward - find the win that comes with a new opportunity and use it like a sky-hook to swing through failure to recovery. Failure may be a bad thing, but it does not make you a bad person. Take a time-out. Sustained recovery depends on learning from the experience of failure. Take the time to learn about what happened and what your part of it is. Consider evaluating the relationships affected by the failure and do an unblinking assessment of damage. A pause for reflection can put failure into perspective and give you time to regroup and plan for recovery.

Success teaches us nothing; only failure teaches.

Hyman G. Rickover


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Part C: Recovery from the Trauma of Derailing Although a single instance may precipitate it, derailing is not an event. It is a process, often experienced as a slow-motion train wreck where someone understands that something is terribly wrong and that events are moving beyond their control but feels paralyzed and powerless to avoid their fate. The core elements of the experience are profound helplessness, social isolation, great anxiety and a loss of power and control. The experience is traumatising on many levels and those who have experienced derailing will never forget it. Some learn from it, others do not. Recovery is also not an instance, but a slow climb out of a dark place, the crucible, toward what Churchill referred to as “the broad sunlit uplands.” In general, recovery from trauma is the ability to live in the present without being overwhelmed by the thoughts and feelings of the past. In leadership practice, recovery is understood to be the capacity to function effectively as a leader without being hostage to past events and associated emotions. Recovery does not mean getting back to where you were, a return to the pre-derailing state, nor does it mean complete freedom from derailing’s longer lasting effects. The experience marks you and becomes part of your character. Each of us recovers in our own way. Like derailing, recovery is the experience of an individual, and it will be different for everyone. The guiding principles of recovery are the restoration of personal safety and stability, making sense of the event(s), and then moving ahead to reconnection, repair and reintegration of the leadership role. These occur in sequence and passage to one state depends on the continuation of the previous state.

Derailing as Moral Injury

Moral injury refers to damage to someone’s beliefs or ethics resulting from an act of perceived moral transgression. Distinct from pathology, moral injury is a normal human response to an abnormal event. Leaders may experience moral injury when their Deal is seriously distorted, damaged or destroyed. Leaders have evolved an implicit set of conventions about their relationship with the institution they work for. The term Deal is used to mean the sum of the “givens” about their role, work and professional life. It has a pervasive influence on performance because it shapes motivations, expectations, and incentives. Derailing implies a fundamental negative change in the Deal and possibly its collapse. It appears to an individual as a situation in which they feel overwhelmed and isolated, unable to influence events, with trust broken or betrayed, and threatened by loss of control over their immediate future and their career. If the event is unexpected, abrupt and seemingly unjustified, moral injury and trauma may occur. The person who derails determines if the experience causes moral injury and trauma. The experience can be a one-time occurrence or part of a longer chronic or repetitive series of smaller experiences that culminate in derailing. It is the subjective experience that matters. The more one feels threatened, the more one will feel trauma. Because we all experience events in different ways, it is unhelpful to generalise from one person’s experience. What may be traumatic to one may be a setback to another.


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Recovery from Trauma

Recovery is a process worked on over time and in deliberate stages. There are several ways to describe it. For purposes of understanding a leader’s recovery from derailing, the following three-phase sequence shown in the attached graphic seems appropriate:

1. Before anything else, find personal safety and stability; 2. Then, make sense of the experience and, to the extent possible, normalize it, and; 3. With normalization, look for reconnection, repair and reintegration of your role as a leader.

It is important to understand that the sequence of recovery phases is necessary and that the divisions between phases are not absolute. There is a degree of overlap as one phase transitions into the next. It is a matter of first things first. It is unhelpful to begin defining a new normal if feeling unsafe and unstable.

Phase 1 – Finding Safety & Stability

People affected by trauma caused by derailing may feel unsafe in themselves and in their relationships with others. There is a loss of stability as their world distorts, breaks and reframes in a new and threatening way. Regaining a sense of personal safety is the first requirement. With safety comes stability and finding solid ground to stand on. Safety comes with time and distance from the event and being in a secure holding environment with healthy boundaries. It may take weeks or months. Others may have to help you find safety or assist with creating a stable place.


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A holding environment is a place where one is safely held and supported. If you are a parent, you know what a holding environment is because you created them for your children. It is a place which fosters and supports a sense of emotional cohesiveness, of knowing that you are whole and safe. It is an encompassing space that gives one the ability "to bear one's feelings without losing or fragmenting oneself." When safety is assured, the next step is to decide on the parts of life that most need stabilisation and beginning to work on these. For example, a person may have difficulty regulating emotions around a perceived shame of derailing or around aspects of life not directly associated with it. Finding ways to manage feelings will help to stabilise the experience and bring a sense of control.

Phase 2 – Making Sense of the Experience, Finding a new normal

This phase is about processing the derailing event, describing it in thoughts, emotions and words, and making sense of it. It involves exploring the event, remembering losses associated with derailing and using time and space to express feelings about. Given that a leading cause of derailment is a lack of self-awareness, it is unlikely an individual can do this phase alone. This is where a coach, mentor or professional counsellor/therapist is needed. Supervisors can help by making these resources available and providing time and space for this support to kick in. It is important to remember that progress in this phase depends on continuing the sense of safety and stability achieved in Phase 1. Attending to these conditions allows the leader to develop a narrative of the derailing event rather than reacting to it in a fight, flight or freeze response. If safety and stability are threatened at any time during this phase, it requires a return to the holding environment and rediscovery of personal safety and stability in Phase 1. Pacing and timing are crucial. If the derailed leader becomes overwhelmed talking about the experience, safety and stability are threatened and need to be regained before moving on with the narrative. The point is not to “re-live” the experience or wallow in negative feelings, but neither is it to tell the story in an abstract way with no emotions attached. Rather, the narrative should be an authentic way to normalise the experience.

Phase 3 – Reconnection, Repair and Integration

The experience of derailing more than qualifies as a crucible experience – a period of very high stress and pressure in which a person’s leadership practice is recast and annealed. A new leader emerges, or not, to reconnect, repair stressed or broken relationships and reintegrate into a different leadership role as a different person. This final phase is where a new sense of self emerges, and a different future begins to appear and come into focus. The derailing event is no longer a defining force in someone’s life. There is understanding that while there has been a bad experience, it does not make the person bad. The trauma becomes integrated into their life story but is not the only thing that defines them. Recovery is an individual process and will look different for everyone. There is an intense desire to recover quickly, and some may feel the process is taking too long, or not being done "right", or that perhaps some of the personal heavy lifting can be skipped. These would be unfortunate choices. It is important to remember


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that recovery does not mean the complete absence of painful memories of the derailing event, rather that it is being able to live with it in a way that it no longer defines one’s life. Coming to this realisation may take time.

Good Recovery Practice

• Get moving: Trauma disrupts the body’s natural equilibrium and may freeze one in a constant state of exhausted vigilance and apprehension. The nervous system gets “stuck.” As well as burning off adrenaline and releasing endorphins, exercise and movement can help the nervous system become “unstuck.”

• Don’t Isolate: Following trauma, there is a natural desire to withdraw, but isolation only makes things

worse. Personal safety and stability is much, much harder to achieve if isolated. Holding environments need others to help shape and maintain them. Connecting to others face to face will enable recovery and maintain relationships. Connecting does not necessarily mean talking about the event. Comfort comes from just feeling engaged and accepted by others.

• Self-regulate: Trauma means a loss of safety and stability. In the first instance, recovery depends on an

ability to self-regulate and regain a sense of personal control. No matter how agitated, anxious, or overwhelmed one feels, it is important to know that people can change how they interpret events and be calm about them. Start with the smallest thing that can be controlled and gradually build out from there to develop confidence in one’s ability to self-regulate. It will help relieve anxiety and engender a greater sense of control.

• Take care of Self: Being healthy increases one’s ability to cope with stress and trauma. Regular sleep is

essential – exhaustion prevents recovery. Avoid substances that temporarily alter how one sees reality. While they may have obvious short-terms benefits, they only increase feelings of depression, anxiety, and isolation. Eat properly to maintain energy. Find ways to relax and bleed off stress.

• The experience will end. Have Faith. Find Hope: Although the present experience may be

overwhelming, it is essential to understand that there is an end to it and to have faith in the certain knowledge that nothing is forever, that times and tides change, and that it is always within the power of individuals to build a new place of greater safety. Nobody is ever completely powerless. Decide where the power lies and start from there. That’s where hope begins.

• Change the frame. Change the game. The trauma that comes with derailing creates a tendency to focus

solely on the event(s). But, recovery is very difficult when all that can be seen is the wreckage after a train-wreck. Although it is difficult, try hard to maintain a larger frame of reference, so the event remains in perspective, and then expand it to see more choices about recovery. A bigger frame helps to change the game by redefining it so that recovery leading to a new future is possible.

When to seek professional help

Recovery takes time, and everyone recovers at their own pace. But, if recovery is not happening or seems delayed, professional help may be needed. Signs that may point to a need for external help include:


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• Feeling seriously unstable, fragile, not coping well. • Suffering from severe fear, anxiety, or depression. • Unable to form or maintain close, satisfying relationships. • Experiencing frightening memories, nightmares, or flashbacks. • Avoiding more and more things that remind you of the trauma. • Emotionally numb and disconnected from others. • Using alcohol or drugs to feel better.

Manage your Narrative

Recovery suggests that a new piece is being added to a person’s professional reputation and a new chapter written in their life narrative. The derailing event becomes one of the marker events on the arc of a professional career. Derailers who are recovering must find a balance between efforts to change themselves and the management of others' perceptions about these changes. The fact is, someone’s professional reputation often lags the reality of present-day performance. This imbalance can generate additional pressures or expectations for recovery that may not be warranted. Showing signs of improvement, a derailer needs time and space to make it work and for others to see that this is so. Supervisors need to find a way to provide ‘top cover’ so that recovery can develop momentum and not be judged on incomplete or outdated information. Find ways to signal the success that allows people to see your recovery in its current and, hopefully, future form.

Concluding Thoughts

Derailing and recovery are processes, not events, and when they occur time becomes important. If for whatever reason, derailing cannot be avoided or side-stepped, it needs to play out. Similarly, recovery will take the time it takes, and not more or less. Both are gradual emotional transitions and need to be seen as such. Patience in these situations is hard, but a virtue nonetheless. Faith in a future is what sustains recovery. The idea of moral injury is a useful way to characterize the hurt and trauma that comes with derailing. It gives it appropriate scale and provides a way to access the fundamentals of a professional life – the deep emotional connection, the Deal, and the beliefs and morals it rests on, that keeps us doing what we do. Rediscovery or reformulation of a Deal during recovery takes time. It is important to know that recovery does not get one back to where they were before derailing. You recover to a different place, hopefully a better one because you have learned whatever lesson is to be learned. Recovery does not mean freedom from the lasting effects of trauma. But, it does help to normalise them. It provides time and space for faith to be rediscovered and confidence in one’s ability to make a better world restored.

failing forward · failing forward william pullen 14 september 2018 adversity is a fact of life and...

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