Failure Isn't Final

There’s no shortage of compelling sports news these days.

But beyond Coach Deion Sanders’ 3-0 start at Colorado, Aaron Rodgers’ injury and baseball playoff races intensifying is a lesser-known, but still relevant, story for us as leaders.

On Monday, Stephanie White was named WNBA Coach of the Year after leading the Connecticut Sun to a 27-13 record in her first season with the team.

Just two years prior, White was out of a job after being fired as head coach of Vanderbilt women’s basketball. She went 46-83 in five seasons.

Why does this matter to us?

We often hear cliches like “Winners win” and convince ourselves that great coaches and leaders almost always find a way to achieve their desired results.

But the truth is that those we consider “winners” are often people who learned from past hardship and applied the relevant lessons.

Instead of wallowing in their pity or pointing the finger when tough times hit, they got better by:

•Being accountable for what went wrong
•Putting their failures under the microscope and studying them
•Putting in additional work at their craft
•Continuing to build non-transactional relationships that led to another chance

If we’re a coach or executive out of a job at the moment or are a leader in some hiring capacity, we might want to consider a few lessons from White’s remarkable turnaround:

1. We, or the person we’re evaluating, may not be at the right level to demonstrate our true skillsets or abilities
2. Records don’t always reveal the entire story
3. Defeat isn’t permanent. It’s about what we do next

“This is really the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people,” White said upon accepting the award on Sunday.

But it was also the culmination of a gritty mentality from a resilient coach — and a reminder that the failures of yesterday can fuel the triumphs of tomorrow.

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