By Godfrey Adejumoh

Failing is not failure. Have you ever failed at something and felt embarrassed, ashamed, or even unworthy of yourself? You’re not alone.

Almost everyone has had such unpleasant experiences at one point or another in their journey.

I have too. Let me share one that made me very uncomfortable.

 

A Personal Experience That Stuck

So, over 15 years ago, in my first job as a Client Service Executive, I managed a client based on Lagos Island, Nigeria, while our office sat on the mainland.

For a particular shareholders’ event, I handled the task of printing the media and backdrop banners.

On the event day, although I took the risk of riding on a bike through the Third Mainland Bridge to beat traffic, I still arrived late, just as the event was ending.

That alone was bad enough, but what followed was worse.

When the client finally agreed to look at the banner, I opened it and discovered that the company’s name was wrongly spelt.

The experience humbled me and stayed with me for years.

• Failure Leaves Scars—But So Does Growth

I don’t know anyone who has risen, or is rising, to the top of their career without carrying scars from past failures.

Perhaps the only exception exists on Instagram and other social media platforms, where it’s perfection or nothing.

While a few people may have walked a smooth, failure-free path, I sincerely congratulate them, and truthfully, I sometimes wish mine had been that way too.

But my journey has been different. Over the years, as I’ve built and strived to make an impact, I’ve come to understand that failure forms one of the essential ingredients in the recipe for lifelong leadership, influence, and legacy.

Redefining Failure as Part of the Success Story

So, if you are going through a season of failure right now, or encounter one along the way, here’s my assurance: it forms part of your success story.

Embrace it, and be grateful for the lessons it offers.

When you handle failure well, it refines you, shapes you, and prepares you to become one of the finest talents your industry will ever know in your time.

Below, I share my thoughts on how the experiences of failure can become some of your best and most defining moments in your career.

 

Failure Builds Empathy

Empathy is one of the strongest assets of true leadership when you nurture and manage it well.

Leadership goes beyond technical competence, hitting numbers, or meeting targets.

Yes, leaders without empathy can achieve business objectives and even deliver growth year after year.

 

But that kind of leadership often feels plastic, transactional, and devoid of genuine followership.

A leader who has experienced failure tends to care more, understand better, and judge less in their approach.

Such leaders are not weak; they are humane. They see their people first as humans, not as machines or tools to be used merely for achieving business goals.

Empathy in leadership does not mean losing sight of targets or compromising results.

Instead, it creates a culture where people feel valued, inspired, and empowered to bring their best selves to work.

 

When leaders lead with empathy, employees develop an ownership mindset, become more engaged, and focus sharply on business success.

In essence, a workforce guided by empathetic leadership transforms into a powerful movement, driven, united, and committed to delivering excellence because they feel genuinely cared for and respected.

 

Failure Builds Discipline and Resilience

The fear of failing again often pushes you to go the extra mile, becoming more disciplined and resilient in the pursuit of operational efficiency and effectiveness.

Failure does not mark a place to remain; it serves as a stopover where you learn lessons before moving swiftly toward improvement.

No one decorates or celebrates failure, but its consequences instill a deep sense of discipline across processes to prevent a repeat.

You don’t build resilience overnight. You forge it through testing the waters, making mistakes, and rising after setbacks.

Leaders who embody discipline and resilience withstand the test of time, thriving even amid complexity and uncertainty.

Failure Builds Guidance

Some leaders operate only at a high level, giving orders and expecting results. Others, however, provide guidance through their leadership.

More often than not, these leaders have experienced failure themselves.

From those experiences, they develop empathy, discipline, and resilience, which drive them to go the extra mile in supporting their teams.

You can express guidance in many ways: consistently creating time to provide clarity when giving instructions, ensuring well-defined workflows, detailing standards of operation, securing adequate resources even amid scarcity, and optimising costs to achieve the best results.

Beyond these, such leaders inspire confidence and instil belief in their teams.

Teams that receive proper guidance often become high-performing, innovative, and capable of breaking through any glass ceiling.

Failure Builds Leading with Quality

When leaders manage failure properly, they learn that processes matter just as much as outcomes.

One should never sacrifice one for the other.

This balance defines what it means to lead with quality.

With quality embedded in leadership, both processes and results become strengthened, creating a repeatable model that can be refined and improved over time.

Leaders who embrace this approach build organisations that last.

And those who build to last create greater impact, deliver lasting value, and establish enduring legacies.

 

Failure Builds Depth

Leadership anchored on insight, hindsight, and pragmatism often results from past failures.

Failure has the capacity to provide hands-on experience for navigating complexities, challenges, and uncertainties, shaping leaders into refined gold.

Nothing compares to having the clarity and foresight that comes from knowing, through experience, what is possible and what is not.

Your depth of knowledge and wisdom, born out of previous failures, better equips you for leadership.

You become a natural at what you do, not because you know it all, but because your past failures have given you the resilience to withstand challenges and the ability to break them down to achieve desired objectives.

 

Final Encouragement: The Rough Road Builds You

This is the core of the matter. I encourage professionals to embrace failure when it happens.

Normalise dealing with unpleasant conditions, uncertainties, ambiguities, and disappointments.

They don’t define you. They make you stronger, help you build resilience, sharpen your empathy, and strengthen your vision for impact.

Ultimately, they set you apart for excellence.

It is crucial to understand that growth, depth, resilience, and leadership rarely coexist with comfort.

Difficult moments forge them moments you may wish had never happened. Yet, those very moments shape you.

For those determined to build to last, remember this: when you experience failure, you are simply going through a process. Nothing is wrong with that. Hold on, stay strong, and work your way through.

You will emerge stronger, wiser, and more outstanding.

Failure builds. Failure instills discipline. Failure prepares you for the journey ahead.

This is perhaps why I couldn’t agree more with Tai Solarin’s 1964 New Year message: “May your road be rough.”

 

Godfrey Adejumoh is a Global Business Communications Strategist and Thought Leader.

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