Why All Leaders Fail

Have you ever failed at something? You made a big decision and it flopped? You fell right on your nose.

I’ve failed. Many times.

From a financial standpoint, it’s disheartening. I’ve seen a $60,000 deal go south and POOF, the money - gone. Or an APU (the engine every aircraft has a no one sees) caught fire and POOF $115,000 disappeared. Or how I over leveraged to a client and POOF, $400,000, not gone...but 12 months later, we're still collecting. 

And I’ve failed even more miserably at hiring my team and leading some of the most important people on it - and frankly in my life.

All Leaders Fail & How They Fix It

Leaders fail. And they fail often. Just life Gary Vaynerchuck says, all the problems his organization faces, is his problem. He’s the CEO. He’s at the top. It’s all on him. It’s all on me. 

Leaders fail. Leaders learn. Leaders adapt. 

People & Culture

Skylink, the company I’m the CEO of, has core values and a vivid vision for the future. We live and breathe these. It’s our guiding light. It’s how we focus and make decisions. It means everything to us. 

Yet, even with this “guiding light”, we were hiring some of the wrong people. Culture is great but if you're hiring people who don’t fit into that culture...good luck. It’s useless. 

We were hiring amateurs. People at 30% of our thinking. It was like leading a rabid dog. They just weren’t on the same page.

Smack me a million times on the hand for this.

And to be fair, it wasn't all them. My leadership style needs work. I talk fast, am very energetic, ADD, and jump from a million dollar issue to a million opportunity with the blink of an eye. It can be hard to keep up.

But, a ton of focus has now be placed on how and who we hire, and the deep training everyone goes through (forever). 

Finances

As they say, cash is king. It’ll bring a company to its knees and chop them off if you’re not careful. 

A lot of leaders lose sight into what an organization needs. They often think revenue, gross profit, and net profit, but there’s this monster called cash flow. 

I don’t care how much revenue you’re generating if your cash burn is faster than cash coming in you’ve got a huge freaking problem. Even with my earlier example of all the costly mistakes we made, we had sound cash flow. 

I don’t think I’ve failed in this area up until this year. I’ve always been a proponent of cash is king. The nickel and dimes will kill you. But I was on a mission for growth and started putting cash in unnecessary areas.

I also lost sight in leading and guiding our CFO. A huge mistake.

As a CEO, it’s part of my job to allocate capital to our priorities and I lost sight of this. I was on a mission to capture more clients and give them the best experience when working with us.

I know how awesome we are in what we do and the value we create for them, so at the time, that was important to me. I wanted to really push this...but I took my focus away from some critical areas.

One being cash. 

I quickly fixed this. 

Strategy 

I’m a strategy guy. I know exactly what we need to do and how to do it to achieve our goals and objectives. 

Not everything I do is a home run but my batting average is great. 

Most leaders fail in this at some point because they’re chasing what everyone else is doing. My approach, I run the other way. I run to where the clients are going and to what they actually want and need. 

Some people are strategic thinkers by nature and others are more executors. It can be a difficult balance. And as they say, ideas are shit without execution. 

I’m strategic.

But I'm bad at relating the execution plans to others. I talk fast, am ADD, and am on to the next conversation in a split second. 

Yes, I fail here, I get it. Which is why my leaders have been with me for 10 years, and get that. They’re awesome. 

My point is, leaders, fail at strategy all the time. Whether it deciding on the right strategy or not executing on it, failure is upon us. We must notice this fast and change the momentum when it has stalled. 

As leaders. We’ll always fail. Don’t think you won’t. But the most important takeaway from this is when you do fail, pick your ass back up, learn from it, and make a better decision next time. And never make the same mistakes. 

You’re a leader. You’ll fail. But that’s life. 

Enjoy the ride…leading is worth every minute. You have the opportunity to change lives. 

Be great!