Leadership Risks Are the Gateway to Growth
Risk is inherent in any endeavor. Leaders know that the more time they spend not taking risks, the slower they grow. Leadership risks are not reckless; they are acts of growth, involving new skills or opportunities you have yet to learn about.
By limiting risk, you limit learning. And if you are not learning, you are not growing… You are shrinking.
The Truth About Mistakes and Growth
“Yes, risk taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking.”
— Tim McMahon
Great leaders accept that mistakes will happen and remain open to learning from them to improve. When we limit our growth, we stagnate, and so do those around us.
If you’re always focused on getting it right, you lose the opportunity to see new possibilities. It is through trial and error that growth happens
Create Space for Experimentation
To create new ideas, you have to allow yourself, or others, to fail. Companies build exploration into design groups, research, beta stages and testing.
All new ideas need a place to have a trial run… as do people. The best learning happens by doing. Leadership risks include giving yourself and your team room to experiment without fear of perfection.
Stay Open to Learning
Keeping an open mind requires only that we remain curious and ask, “How could I do this?” instead of “Why should I do this?” When people stop learning, organizations stop growing.
We live in a world steeped in the false expectation that we “get it right the first time.” This is simply not true, and yet the expectation continues.
Being comfortable with “getting into hot water,” paired with the readiness to course-correct, helps build a healthy path toward success.
Leaders Take Risks to Expand Possibility
Leadership risks allow you to expand horizons for yourself and others. To lead well, one must constantly be in a personal growth mode. Avoiding change may provide short-term results, but often at the cost of long-term potential.
In today’s world, taking risks means consistently planting long-term growth ideas. Without that, delivering consistent short-term gains becomes harder over time.
The Secret to Risk Taking Is Belief
“Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe.”
— Winston Churchill
If there is a secret to risk, it’s belief.
Pick up any leadership book, and you’ll find it all boils down to the leader’s core values and beliefs. When you are clear and true to who you are, risk becomes less about fear and more about following your vision with courage and conviction.
Leadership risks evolve into purpose when they are tied to a bigger dream. Risk-taking is no longer risk-taking when you are driven by a vision that creates positive outcomes for all involved.
Dream big and live true,
Bobbie Goheen
