Personal Leadership: Why Failure Is Not an Option

Masha -

If trust is the foundation for influence and good leadership, why do so many of my colleagues file for bankruptcy when crises occur? Or even without any crises at all?

I am talking about our everyday leaders and mentors, those people in positions of trust who are supposed to protect us, advise us, and prevent us from making mistakes.

But they don’t.

Let's take the regulators in the USA. A few years ago, employees of the Minerals Management Service reportedly used cocaine and marijuana and had sexual relationships with representatives of oil and gas companies, according to a government report.  

Then an oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.  

According to a recently released NPR podcast, Planet Money:  

Economists have been writing for decades about the 'regulatory capture' – the idea that regulators are taken over by the industry they are supposed to oversee and ultimately serve its interests.

So who controls the controllers?

Who controls us ourselves?

Anyone?

Is this another case of 'Greed is good, everything else doesn't matter'?

Generation after generation: the subprime crisis, the savings bank crisis, the Nummi plant at the end of the 70s – fraud in all forms and sizes, private and professional – always the same selfish schemes, just in different decades.

Regulation comes and goes. Laws are passed and then discarded.

Nevertheless, we do not teach ourselves, our children, or our grandchildren the fundamentals of self-leadership. At least not to the extent that we can break the cycle of misconduct.

We give in, we fail, and some of us break. I myself have broken because of it. Unfortunately, some of these broken parts and broken people cannot be repaired.

I am not suggesting that we burden our governments or each other with excessive regulation and hinder our business activities and the recovery of our economy.

However, we must not allow the leadership gap to ruin our companies and our livelihoods. We need committed leaders who lead responsibly and with passion.

In short: If enough of us save a personal amount to the following extent:

  • Trust
  • Responsibility
  • Reliability
  • Adaptability
  • Critical thinking
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Spiritual intelligence, and  
  • Empowering, personal relationships with high benefits.

And if we teach our children the same thing and influence others through mentoring and leadership skills, then bankruptcy can never be an option.

Take the initiative. And take it personally.

The call to action is clear: organizational integrity ultimately rests on the individual commitment to personal leadership. When leaders and mentors fail, it is often due to a failure in self-governance and the absence of a personal, non-negotiable reserve of core values like trust and responsibility. For HR professionals utilizing the IceHrm platform, this principle is crucial. While IceHrm provides the structure for performance and compliance, it also supports the development of these essential soft skills. HR can leverage IceHrm's Performance Management and Training modules to explicitly integrate and measure these traits—like Emotional Intelligence and Responsibility—in employee evaluations and development plans. By formally recognizing and fostering these fundamental aspects of self-leadership through the system, organizations send a clear message: cultivating a strong personal foundation is not just beneficial, but a mandatory investment against organizational failure.