The ability to tackle failure and make the most of it is a characteristic trait of good leaders, and one that many b-schools look for in their applicants. Thus, Tuck asks you to “describe a circumstance in your life in which you faced adversity, failure, or setback. What actions did you take as a result and what did you learn from this experience?” Haas puts more or less the same question in a different way: “Describe a time in the last three years when you overcame a failure. What specific insight from this experience has shaped your development?” On the other hand, IMD seeks your comment “on a situation where your leadership proved to be inadequate and what you learned.”
As an applicant, you might wonder, “Isn’t it embarrassing to speak of your own failures?” If you have this attitude, it is unlikely that you will do a good job of the essay. Remember the old proverb, “Failures are the pillar of success” and, through your essay, illustrate the golden truth of this priceless piece of wisdom.
Here are two suggestions on how you can go about it:
When you fail, you learn what doesn’t work. In that sense, your failure has taken you one step closer to success.
History is replete with examples of people who turned their failures into monumental successes. Henry Ford’s early businesses failed so badly that he was left broke five times before he achieved success though the Ford Motor Company; and Walt Disney, that man who is today considered the paragon of success, was fired by a newspaper editor for lacking in imagination and having no good ideas!
Think of an occasion when your failure led you to a better understanding of your situation so that, by eliminating what not to do, you discovered the path to follow.
Perhaps, at some time, you were asked to lead a project which you could not deliver on time. At first, you naturally felt very frustrated and disappointed, but when you analyzed what had happened, it occurred to you that, being too much of a perfectionist, you hesitated to delegate work. As a result, you created a very negative climate: you took on more pressure on yourself than was warranted, you slowed down the pace of work, and you lowered the morale of your team-mates, who did not cooperate with you to the extent you would have wished.
Once you identified the cause of your failure, you had already begun treading on the stepping stones that would lead to your success.
From the experience cited above, you learnt the following lessons:
You can round off your essay by demonstrating how, in a subsequent project, you applied the lessons you learnt, and how, in consequence, you achieved singular success.
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