As leaders, setbacks come with the territory. We wouldn’t need leaders if everything ran smoothly—perhaps a strange way to look at job security.

If you have been in leadership for any reasonable amount of time, you have come to accept setbacks, disappointments, conflicts, and just plain failure. You see, in the middle of the pain is where we find authentic leadership.

It is the leader’s mindset: A SETBACK IS NOTHING OTHER THAN A SET-UP FOR THE COMEBACK. We, as leaders, must wear this on our sleeves. Be an example of how
to deal with failure, disappointment etc.

My friend and author John Maxwell said it best, “EXPERIENCE IS NOT THE BEST
TEACHER, ONLY EVALUATED EXPERIENCE IS.” This is where the secret sauce is. When we step back and evaluate what went wrong, what did or didn’t happen. We must put the event through the “lessons learned filter.”

You may already have this great mindset. Now you must teach that to someone on your team. Someone is out there waiting and wanting the setback lesson you can prepare and demonstrate.

As leaders, we have our share of winning. That is great, for sure. However, I have discovered much more to learn when we lose when we fail. As a result, there is never a loss, only the learning.

If we are going to develop leaders, they must learn this mindset. I challenge all of us today to seek someone out who is having a setback and show them the way to the comeback.