In the modern workplace, there is a growing emphasis on fostering environments where failing is seen as an integral part of learning and growth. When companies create a culture where “failure” isn’t necessarily a bad word, employees are more likely to feel safe in taking calculated risks and innovating new solutions. This approach not only enhances employee morale and creativity, but also bolsters an organization’s overall resilience and adaptability.
To help leaders cultivate a workplace where failure leads to growth—rather than dashed career aspirations or demerits on performance reviews—20 members of Forbes Coaches Council share their expert insights. Read on for their top tips on encouraging the right kind of risk-taking, which will ultimately allow employees and companies to grow.
1. Reframe The Notion Of Failure
What if a company reframed the notion of failure and promoted risk-taking as a way of learning, failing fast and reiterating? This idea needs to be tied to the company culture and lived out through the behaviors and values expressed by employees. Risk-taking is less likely if leaders are unwilling to celebrate failure as a way to grow people and the company. – Gina Riley, Gina Riley Consulting
2. Shape Culture By Example
The most potent way that leaders shape culture is by example. If, through behavior and storytelling, leaders illustrate that their failures were ultimately constructive, others will feel emboldened to take risks. Leaders are also wise to identify and celebrate smart risk-takers. Prioritizing innovative inputs (habits, norms and processes) over outcomes mitigates employee performance anxiety. – Kedren Crosby, Work Wisdom
3. Be Transparent About Your Own Failures
Be an example. Employees will believe what they see more than what they hear, so demonstrate your own growth after a flop. Share your stories of failures that became innovations. Be transparent about your imperfections and allow your team to see your response. Celebrate cognitive resilience. Use language that shows constructive feedback as something to be grateful for, not something to dread. – Zitty Nxumalo, Deftable, LLC
4. Give Feedback And Analyze Results Together
Leaders can reframe failure. There is a tenet in natural language processing: “There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.” There are results we like; in that case, celebrate them! And there are results we don’t like; in this case, ask “What would we do differently next time in order to get the results we do want?” When making mistakes is embraced as an opportunity for learning and growth, rather than as detrimental, change happens. – Cath Daley, Cath Daley Ltd
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5. Reward Learning And Bouncing Back
Failure is a heavily loaded experience. A person “failing” carries a huge burden within, depending on what failure means for them—from growth to identity itself. A leader mindful of this must create platforms for conversation to focus on the learning and not the failure. Take a coaching approach. Build their confidence. Reward learning and bouncing back as strongly as you do success. Share bounce-back stories. – Nikhil Chadha, Mindwize
6. Practice Objectivity
Whether an objective goal or key performance indicator is reached is factual. That can be discussed in a calm, professional manner, and there can be several reasons why it was not reached—for example, other priorities or a lack of training, tools or manpower available to achieve it. That’s a real learning opportunity. – Nick Leighton, Exactly Where You Want to Be
7. Provide Full-Circle Feedback
Everything we do has a positive, a challenging and a neutral perspective. In coaching, I call it full-circle feedback. There is no failure; there is only learning. Breakthrough results can only happen if a leader celebrates failure as growth. In fact, in individual development plans, celebrate failure and learning to achieve success goals, and watch your team soar as the fear of failure is eliminated. – Jodie Charlop, Exceleration Partners
8. Separate Performance Reviews From Developmental Discussions
Leaders can create a growth-oriented culture by encouraging risk-taking, recognizing efforts and emphasizing learning from failure, while also providing support and resources for improvement after such failures. Additionally, separating annual performance evaluations from developmental discussions will help ensure employees aren’t penalized for growth-oriented mistakes. – Kristin Andree, Andree Group
9. Have Employees At All Levels Share Lessons Learned
Leaders can introduce “Failure-Feedback-Learning Circles” where all employees—including top management—periodically and consistently share their failures and lessons learned. That will normalize failure and lead to embracing it as a path to innovation and development, rather than a source of guilt and shame. – Dorota Klop-Sowinska, DoSo! Coaching
10. Capitalize On Experimentation
True experiments usually help you learn something new, validate a premise or reestablish a tried and tested approach. Most organizations that have a culture where failure leads to growth capitalize on these. If employees have managed to learn from the failure, validate an idea or establish an approach through the failure, it shouldn’t adversely impact their performance or career aspirations. – Vinesh Sukumaran, Vinesh Sukumaran Consulting
11. Share Real-Life Examples Of Failure Leading To Growth
Sharing examples and real case studies of how failure led to growth and great results can be a good motivation booster and a good opportunity to establish trust. Leaders also need to set and communicate clear rules around performance evaluations and outline the criteria taken into account for the performance evaluation, as there is a fine line between failure and underperformance. – Adriana Kosovska, Zero To Dream Job
12. Invite Failure To Empower Innovation
Move away from treating failure like the “F” word. Failure leads to innovation. Failure is the pathway to success. It has so much to teach us. Companies that embrace failure as an opportunity to grow cultivate cultures of empowerment in which people feel safe to take initiative and bring new ideas to the table. Cultures of empowerment are where innovation is born. – Nathalie Blais, Canada Coach Academy
13. Embrace ‘80% Correct’ Decision-Making
Leaders need to develop a culture that embraces decision-making based on being 80% directionally correct. Often, teams and individuals don’t know the exact answer, but can more easily make a decision that’s 80% correct. When they make 80% directionally correct decisions, they move more quickly and adjust toward 100% as they gather more data points. This format allows for growth and risk-taking. – Tawn Albright, Bowstring
14. Adopt A ‘Shoot For The Stars’ Mentality
Adopt a “Shoot for the Stars” mentality within the company. This mindset teaches everyone to swing big while knowing sometimes we’ll win and other times we’ll fail. When we fail, we’ll learn from it and get better. Leaders must also consistently recognize employees who have the courage to live this mindset out so they can reinforce the desired behavior. – Justin Patton, The Trust Architect Group
15. Define Failure
Defining failure is a tightrope that leaders walk; customers do not tolerate mistakes. But growth and innovation do not happen consistently without some failures. To avoid mistakes and failures that don’t impact outcomes, training and support is essential. There’s a place and time for allowing employees to try new things, fail and learn. But like athletes, there is practice and then there is game day. – Ira Wolfe, Poised for the Future Company
16. Don’t Sweep Failure’s Lessons Under The Rug
Accomplishments are built on lessons learned from failures; however, failures and their lessons are routinely swept under the institutional rug by most leaders. This is an easy path to take in an organization that is driven by results and financial benchmarks. However, leaders can celebrate learning by including the lessons learned from failures in each achievement. – Amy Feind Reeves, HireAHiringManager, Formerly JobCoachAmy
17. Embrace The Concept Of A Learning Organization Culture
Embracing the concept of a learning organization culture simply means that we are continuously aiming for something better, something new that has never been tested or tried before. This will help ego-driven leaders to lower their expectations around the results, as any outcome will be perceived as a positive outcome—or what we can call “failing forward!” – Abdulaziz Al-Roomi, Global Legacy Management Consulting & Training
18. Create Systems To Support Reflection And Learning
To leverage failure as a stepping stone to growth, organizations must create systems where time and resources are available to support reflection and learning from experiences. Performance reviews should focus on growth and alignment with the organization’s goals. Learning and progress should be valued in mission and practice. – Eric Brown, Jr., ELVTE Coaching and Consulting
19. Don’t Create An ‘Echo Chamber’ Environment
A sure way to ruin a sense of safety and discourage innovative insights is to create an “echo chamber” environment between leadership and teams. Leaders must set the example of embracing risk through the lens of opportunity. When the outcome isn’t ideal, leading with the lesson encourages growth. “What do we start doing, stop doing or do differently?” should be the question, versus asking, “What failed?” – Meridith Alexander, G.R.I.T. Mindset Academy
20. Help People Develop A ‘Fail Forward’ Mindset
Foster a culture that appreciates failure as a normal part of everyone’s journey. The goal is not to eliminate failure; it’s to learn and grow. Encourage a mindset of continuous improvement, where learning from failure is celebrated—and, of course, model this behavior. Annual reviews should reflect progress, not perfection. – Angela Sedran, The Business Growth Accelerator
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