Failure matters! It means you’re learning.

An alarming number of companies must deal with newly minted leaders failing at the jobs for which they have supposedly been groomed.

Such mismatches are common across industries, geographies and roles, in almost all organizations. And it’s starting to show. Nearly half of all leaders who move into new roles fail to meet their objectives, and two-thirds don’t adapt quickly enough to meet their goals, according to a Gartner 2018 blog post.

A solution to this is offered based upon a large three-year study on what makes a leader effective in today’s work environment. This highlights the importance of the “work context”— looking beyond the responsibilities of a role to consider the unique situations and challenges specific to the leader, team, organization and external environment.

The trick is to match leaders to challenges for which they are best suited.

Use work context analysis to determine how organizations assess the relative merits of leaders, their suitability for a particular role and their performance within that role. The trick is to match leaders to challenges for which they are best suited, and to align leadership development to current and future challenges the leader may face.

As the number of challenges increases, the more likely it becomes that leaders will fall short of their objectives. The data helps explain the high failure rate for leaders in complex roles that involve multiple challenges.

Certain challenges are more consistently difficult for all leaders. Frequent leadership changes, a culture of low support or collaboration, high uncertainty and high-conflict work culture have the strongest negative impact on leader performance. Of the leaders facing all four of these challenges simultaneously, a majority (68%) face performance issues.

Match the right leader to the right challenge.

Although contextual challenges can undermine leader performance, it doesn’t by default spell failure for all leaders. In fact, leaders thrive when facing challenges that are suited to their personality and experience.

Adapt. Align. Learn. Do. Fail. Learn. Do. Rinse and repeat.

Simon Sinek    Jeff Bullas       Jeff Goins        Sonia Simone

Seth Godin      Joe Pulizzi       Heidi Cohen    Neil Patel        Lee Odden

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