All good leaders make mistakes. Even consultive leaders fail. Some mistakes are a sign of hubris. Others are a sign of courageously leading into an unknown future. Occasionally, they’re a combination of the two. The question isn’t whether or not you make mistakes–it’s how you respond when you fail.
I have definitely made my share of leadership blunders. At times I owned those mistakes. At other times, I made excuses. The former led to growth–the latter to stagnation or even repeated, but avoidable, failure.
I’m not sure any of us are completely humble or arrogant. Most of us are a mixed bag. I certainly know I am. It seems to me that the big question is whether or not your growing.
Here’s a great quote from Pat Williams’ book on humility in which he paraphrases U.S. Marine commander, Donovan Campbell, on the positive power of humility and the destructive nature of arrogance.
“…humble leaders learn from their mistakes, while arrogant leaders only shift the blame for their mistakes. Because leaders make a lot of decisions, they invariably make a lot of mistakes–more mistakes than the average person. Arrogant leaders, whose decisions are never questioned and their words are never challenged, keep making the same mistakes over and over again, because they never learn from their failures and misjudgments. Only humble leaders learn and grow from their mistakes.”