Let Them Fail Safely
Managing Failure as a Mentor
My writings on the role of failure only considered the individual perspective. In this essay, I will focus on failure from a leadership/mentorship perspective.
You must help your mentees avoid mistakes that force them to quit the game. But you should limit your intervetnions to avoid helicopter-parent behavior.
Discussions with parents made me realize how similar parental and mentorship instincts are. You want the best for your child/mentee, and you want them to avoid the silly mistakes you made. This instinct served humanity well when mistakes meant exiting the gene pool, but it robs the learning signal to adapt to new situations.
The scientific method demonstrates why
Failure is a learning signal.
Failed experiments show what does not work. The same goes for presentations and procrastinating until the day before the deadline.
Acknowledging that failure can be a learning signal is not enough. We need to create an environment that allows for safe failure.
If you manage people, allow them to lead a project, chair a (useful) meeting, or design a report. Low-risk assignments enable them to learn their strengths and weaknesses.
You cannot protect them from every failure, and fail they will. Enabling safe failure requires you to take a step back. This can cause anxiety. But it's even worse to protect your ego by constantly intervening, thus making your mentees fail in the long run.
Learning this is a part of personal growth. Yours and your mentees'.
