10 Ways to Maximize Bad Experiences
A young leader writes, “How do you recover from bad experiences with leadership in a previous job, and from having trust in leadership demolished as a result?”
The value of trust is seen in the ease with which it is lost and the difficulty with which it is gained.
Perilous point:
The real issue is you, not them.
What you do with bad experiences is more important than the experiences.
Fear holds back.
Anger pushes away.
Bitterness pollutes.
10 ways to maximize bad experiences:
- Overcoming bad experiences is a process not an event. If you can, take a break and rest.
- Welcome dark emotions, don’t reject them. Find a trusted friend, coach, or mentor who lets you explore your dark side. Don’t camp in the darkness just explore.
- One leader isn’t all leaders. Disappointment in one area bleeds into others, if you allow it. Make a list of people who have helped you along your journey. Call and thank them.
- Don’t go around talking about how you were wronged. Life and relationships are colored by the words you repeat. Replace the urge to complain with affirmations or compliments.
- Remain forward-focused. Past disappointments drag us into the past.
- Trust first. Let people prove they aren’t trustworthy rather than making them prove they are. But, don’t bet the bank on untested people. The only way to learn to trust again is to do it.
- Practice vulnerability with discretion. You can’t trust everyone. But, over-protection limits impact.
- Create a win. Bad experiences take the wind out of our sails. Set a new goal.
- Focus on things within your control. Trying to control other people is frustrating, exhausting, and futile.
- Spend time in self-reflection. Ask yourself; am I proud of myself, am I heading in positive directions, who do I want to be, what am I learning?
How can leaders maximize bad experiences?
Hi D, I would share with a less experienced Leader only this concerning less than hoped for experiences:
These experiences will have great value and significance for you showing you the contrast between what you want and what you don’t.
Less than hoped for experiences have great value exposing to you what you do not want.
Learn, regrip, rip!!!
SP
EA
Thanks Scott. As I read your comment, I thought about the value of being able to identify trustworthy leaders through our experiences with the untrustworthy. Learning who you can trust is essential to success.
Very true Dan I completely agree!!!
When living in the two thoughts
1 happy now
2 vision for the future
Having people I hang with I trust seems cool.
SP
EA
Good stuff Dan. Also important to try to build what some people call your Adversity Quotient (AQ). (Suggested reading includes Adversity Advantage by Paul Stoltz and Erik Weihenmeyer). Especially for younger people climbing the leader ladder, the sooner you build your strength to handle bad experiences well, the more solid footing you will have as you climb. Two things are certain, there will always be adversity and it can almost always be overcome! Always Care, Paul
Thanks Paul. I’m glad you extended the conversation by offering an added resource.
For anyone interested, here’s a link to The Adversity Advantage.
You will rarely find a leader that has had an easy path. Pain and obstacles change us … they rebuild who we are. Take what you learn from these experiences and positively affect someone else in your life in supporting their bumps in the road.
Thanks Michael. Oooo! I love your approach — take what you learn and help someone else. That’s gold!
You made me think of another question, “What would you do differently?” It’s not that we can change the past but it might be useful to think about what you would do differently, if you could go back.
Here’s a case study about asking “What would you do differently?”. I was transferred abroad a long time ago. I thought I had a great contract, but it turned out my superior had been less than upfront about the tax situation in the country I was transferred to, so I ended up a lot worse off financially than I had been where I was before. When I plead my case to my boss, he said it was better to learn the hard way as that is what he had had to do.
Fast forward 10 years or more. My old boss is being transferred to a higher security risk location. He asks me for guidance that will help him stay safe in his new surroundings. I had a bit of a chuckle and asked when he had changed his mind about it being better to learn things the hard way! 🙂
Fortunately, perhaps especially fortunate for my colleague, the first experience I had taught me to do things differently if I ever got the chance! 🙂
Stay safe,
Always Care,
Paul
What would I do differently if I could go back? I’ve spent too much time thinking about what I would do differently. What I did not do in the past was not appreciate the value I was bringing to the team, who I was and am. Being hard on oneself can be used to motivate yourself but it can also rob self confidence and sap your emotional strength when others are unfairly critical of your core beliefs and strengths. When faced with an unfair situation, it is better to stick up for oneself and lose your job than capitulate to keep the boss’ ego satisfied. Honesty is the best. If you are losing sleep over something, face your fears. Sticking up for what you believe in strengthens your soul and gives you motivation for future positive opportunities … especially if you lose your job unjustly.
Excellent, Michael, particularly about helping another. Great way to learn and get over, move on. Thanks.
Best…Jim
Keeping ourselves focused at the highest level of our lives is also a great help, like a compass it points true when the environment around us is disorienting.
Thanks Ken. It’s true that our troubles can narrow our focus and make us small, if we don’t open up. Great add.
Great stuff, Dan. It took me way too long in my leadership experience to ’embrace’ my mistakes as part of the journey. It develops humility, makes you a better listener, and helps you to invite others to the conversation, knowing you ‘don’t know it all.’ My experience is the mistakes are what shape you in really positive ways by broadening your capacity to lead. Really like the ‘one leader isn’t all leaders’ and ‘staying forward focused.’ Great advice. I learned to add “I’m sorry” to my repertoire as well.
Best…Jim
Thanks Jim. Love, “Mistakes broaden your capacity.” Powerful!
I like point 10. I had to spend a lot of time in self-reflection last year. This helped. Yet, I found that I had to distance myself from some painful emotions, to allow myself to see better
Thanks Rajiv. Good point on finding distance. Circling the darkness over and over only makes us dark.
Dear Dan,
One of the habits that maximizes our bad experience is “not learning from experience”. Many times, we tend to believe that similar bad experience will not happen. When we do that, we make big mistake. It is just over assumption in our favor. I agree with you that when leader welcome dark emotions, they tend to deviate and invite bad experience. It is true that painful experiences change us but repeated painful experience may be even more disastrous. So, the person with strong will power and determination can take the painful experience in positive way. The person with poor will power and determination, may maximize pain that may be difficult to overcome.
I think mistakes are our friends as long as we take them, accept them and willing not to repeat them. Taking mistakes as a natural process always may be painful and does not allow to change it. So, it is our learn ability that plays role in creating and changing us. Person with high learn ability will take mistakes and bad experience in positive direction.
Thanks Ajay. Powerful warning…bad experiences get worse when we don’t learn from them. Oh yeah.
Dan,
Dwelling on bad experiences can be detrimental to anyone, getting past that point is up to each of us to seek answers. Sit back and re-think the situation, ask yourself what did I do wrong? Seek out another solution to correct your error (First you have to admit you made an error). Life’s lesson sometimes are the hardest to overcome sometimes,pain will linger if we dwell too long! You just have to tough through it! We all learn from mistakes,the experiences will drive you to success if you follow the correct path.
Thanks Tim. I feel the tendency to stew over things…to circle bad situations like buzzards circle a carcass. Life grows black and people become the enemy when that happens.
As with most things, there are two sides of the bad experience see-saw. It is very rare that the problem is entire one parties’ fault. It can certainly lean more one way than the other, but the thing to remember about see-saws is that it takes two to make it work, but it only takes one to take the enjoyment out of it.
Sometime bad experiences are not due to having a bad leader, but bad circumstances. Perhaps they have a bad boss and it reflects through them. Perhaps they have a stressful home life that leeches negativity into work. Sometimes all it takes it a little time to get to know them.
However, all of us know sometimes personalities don’t mix, working habits conflict, communication is strained at best, or that occassionally, you just get a bad boss. Sure, sometimes it definitely makes sense to tough it out. There is some great benefits to doing so, if you have an eventual plan or goal, something your striving towards that makes dealing with the situation more bearable.
But remember the see-saw. All it takes it one person jumping off when the other is in the air and vulnerable to bring them crashing (often painfully) into the ground. There is a degree of trust required, and a bit of eveness to the playing field, otherwise you run the risk of being high and dry, with a chance of a painful crash.
Thanks John. When we are angry at someone, like a boss, it’s hard to accept that there are two sides to every situation.
One thing we have to be careful of is to project our failures on our bosses. I had an employee who trusted no one, claiming he had been unfairly treated in the past. What he didn’t see was that his work habits forced us to micro-manage him. We were unable to salvage him, and he moved on – with stories of another bad boss.
Thanks billgncs. Very challenging thought. They say we see ourselves in others. What if the things we see in a “bad” boss are things in our own lives. OUch
In responding to a question like this, I think it’s important to point out that there are real Leaders and there are LINOs (leaders in name only). LINOs are in leadership positions, so you can’t ignore them; but know that they are out there and consider their actions accordingly. LINOs will be all over the board in the amount of non-leader characteristics they display. But being aware of them helps soften their negative impacts.
A real Leader is always working to build and maintain trust.
Resiliency is key. Wins and losses teaches that process is just as important than outcome for resilient leaders.
“How do you recover from bad experiences with leadership in a previous job, and from having trust in leadership demolished as a result?”
This is one of those questions where the answer depends on the person, the impact, circumstances, environment, resources and support available at the time, etc.
We can use your car accident a couple years back as a perfect example. Not all ‘experiences’ are created equally. So to compare your recovery experience with someone who fell down and scraped their knee and perhaps needed a couple of stitches are two very different things.
And if you didn’t have the right kind of emergency help and treatment/support available..it could have resulted in your death and/or permanent long term damage.
So often, people treat ‘internal’ damage as if it doesn’t exist and it’s easy to do because unlike our physical wounds that we can visible SEE; blood, cuts, bruises, a fractured bone sticking out, etc. We don’t SEE internal damage. We don’t SEE the impact events have on people when it comes to psyche, emotions, nervous system, etc. Although we see ‘symptoms’ of what goes on internally. However, in NOT being able to really SEE the reality of the internal state, the impact is far too often minimized for people.
The reality is that while it’s up to us to ‘heal’ from things in life, none of us can really do it all alone.
You’ve identified some great points in your list of 10. I totally agree with #1.
‘Overcoming bad experiences is a process not an event. If you can, take a break and rest.’
Just like it took time for you to recover and rehabilitate from your accident, it takes us all time to recover from our other bad life experiences. Recovery and rehab time really do depend on how severe the circumstances are.
#2 Definitely!
‘Welcome dark emotions, don’t reject them. Find a trusted friend, coach, or mentor who lets you explore your dark side. Don’t camp in the darkness just explore.’
If we aren’t allowed to feel what we are feeling. Even to acknowledge that those emotions exist, we tend to go into resistance because ‘nothing changes until IT becomes what IT IS.’ I DID read that somewhere and I can’t remember the original source! (my bad) We can STUFF those emotions but they aren’t HIDDEN. They will leak out in various ways until they are dealt with.
#3 AGREED! One leader isn’t all leaders.
That said, cultural MINDSETS can impact the way MANY leaders operate. i.e. command and control mindsets. This impacts more then one leader and so this is why some ‘negative’ experiences happen on a chronic basis. The MINDSET of an entire GROUP or culture needs to change sometimes before some ‘mass’ behaviors change. And this takes time. Spanning YEARS or even decades…
Lots of good points throughout your list.
Probably the MOST important point for me personally is I learn what NOT to do sometimes based on my experiences in the past. I learn how OTHER people feel who may be going through similar things I’ve went through in life. In essence, we can learn what NOT to do when it comes to many of our own bad leadership experiences.
We evolve. And we can evolve together because none of us can do it all alone.
Bravo Samantha!!!!
If you never heard of Lynn Grabhorn…very cool lady!!!!
Think you would enjoy what she has to share very much!!
I really like her cause she was a cool Recovering, Thinking person!!
Anyways thanks for sharing Samantha.
SP
EA Free youtube videos, one of her books, whole thing as a matter of fact!!
Thanks Scott.
I’ll be sure to add her to the list of people/resources/books to check out.
I’m currently on a rather practical mission in the mind/body connection at the moment. (for a variety of reasons) Health being #1 priority at the moment. Found some very cool resources that are turning out to be highly motivating, and that has certainly been a bonus.
Just really in a season where I’m craving/needing more activity-driven and action based resources right now. Less ‘intellectual’ material since that’s the easy playground for me to play in.
A-C-T-I-O-N right now! : )
Thanks for commenting Scott. I appreciate it.
Thanks Dan 🙂 the “young leader” was me and I’m so pleased and grateful that you answered my question with a whole post!! Feeling very empowered right about now. It means a lot and your blog teaches me so much 🙂
How can leaders maximize bad experiences? Try again. And again. And again. I’m rarely good at something the first try.
No human being can escape experience whether it is bad or good. Apart from work related experience, one experiences so many things in personal life as well. How one reacts and learns and looks at the positive side of such experience is what takes us to the next level. Each experience needs to be evaluated to ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes we committed that the experience turned bad and devise plan to do better.
Overcoming bad experiences is a process not an event.
In the process of overcoming if we can remain forward-focused by channelizing our time to concentrate on what we can do next? will really help us.
I like this article specially because I think it doesn’t apply solely to leaders or, in this particular case, to bad experiences for leaders. Good article!
Excellent article! It’s important for future leaders to see what not to do, as well as what TO do. So bad experiences could not only help you create thicker skin, but also show you what not to do when you become a leader yourself. We all have to deal with it in one way or another. Vent, learn the lesson, and strive to be better/greater when you become a leader.
Dear Dan Thank you again for sharing such positive guidance. This one is destined for a sheet in my desk to keep me constantly reminded. I’m going to use “relationship” in point 3 – “One leader isn’t all leaders” to remind me that everything here applies equally to our relationships with those we lead.
One of the best ways I’ve been able to maximize bad experiences is to recognize what happened and be transparent about the solution. We might not always know why something went wrong. Spending valuable time on a root cause analysis is helpful to prevent something from happening again but won’t fix this current problem. Leaders should focus on making it right, right now. I try to keep a forward momentum toward the solution, recognizing the bad experience might have slowed us down but do not let it deter us from achieving our goals. Also, there is little benefit to pointing out who was responsible for the failure. Taking a shared sense of accountability helps the organization learn, not just the individual. We take responsibility for the bad experience and allow individuals to take ownership of their own failures or recognize how they could have acted/reacted in a way that supports the solution instead of augmenting the problem.
I had a challenging week with office politics, clients, and work this past week. I think I could have reacted better and spent the better part of my weekend going over (and over, and over) what happened in my head. But replaying the events were only making me more upset about what I did or didn’t do, what I could have done, and were making me feel worse – not better. I was extremely excited to find this particular post for the “Say three sentences after failure” tip. This is something I can do to constructively think about the problem and my actions, write it down, learn from it, and keep moving forward without dwelling on the negative. This tip uses an outcome-driven focus so it’s not about “what went wrong” or “why did I do that?” The leadership outcome is to constantly improve and to grow from failure – not to let the failure become an anchor or a closet full of skeletons.