How Do You React To Failure?

The different ways in which different people react to failure is a motivational puzzle. What is it that causes some to sail forth into the world with great promise and a strong trajectory, then quit after only one defeat? Unable to rise from their failure, they scale down their dreams and live out their lives in resignation and cautious mediocrity. On the other hand, what causes some to be capable of endless renewal? Failure seems only to make them more determined to overcome, and when they stumble, they pick themselves up, look around to learn from their mistakes, and then go on to finish the race with distinction.

If leaders can teach people how to handle failure creatively, it may be the most important contribution they can make. So [one of the rules] for bringing out the best in people is this: Create an environment where failure is not fatal.

I talked once to a woman with vast experience in politics who had observed the great and the near great. She said, "Do you know what separates achievers from the masses? I once thought it was drive, intelligence, connections. But the longer I've watched people, the more I've discovered that, paradoxically, it is an ability to fail that makes for lasting success."

…"Failure never hurt anybody," Jack Lemmon* once said. "It's the fear of failure that kills you, that kills artists." Effective motivators keep a bag of tricks with them and use whatever devices are necessary to help their followers stare down failure, learn from their mistakes, and go on with perseverance. At times you yell them on and persuade them to run one more lap when they're convinced they can't take another step. At other times you push them back on the horse that has thrown them, before fear has time to take over. In some cases you rearrange duties so that their string of failures can be interrupted and they can have some small successes. In other words, the motivator knows that the fear of failure can destroy a dreamer with fine prospects, and that the most important lesson they can learn is that failures are only the whetstones of life. (*Jack Lemmon: American actor)

(Article: Bringing Out the Best in People)