I believe that we put too much weight of demonstrated leadership through the celebration of the success without reviewing the circumstances that lead to that success. Before we get too far, I want to be clear in that I am not saying we should not celebrate success, as isn’t success the point. What I am saying is that where the success is the result, what lead to that success that can be replicated or avoided to generate more success.

It is the experiences that lead to the success. Think of Thomas Edison and the creation of the lightbulb. It is reported that he said, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The lightbulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Thomas Edison grew, not from the success, but from the experiences of getting to that success. One thousand experiences led to the invention of the lightbulb. We have to look at the experiences that led to the success a bit more.

In my life, I have had many experiences that led to my success. At one point in a company survey of the effectiveness of the leader in your organization, I was deemed by my subordinates as compared to the rest of the organization’s leaders (over 30 of us) to be the least effective. Yes, I was not just at the bottom of the list, I was the bottom. Last, in the list of my peers. What a failure I was at the time. But, I learned from that experience that I had to do and be better. And about 18 months later when the survey was taken again, I had moved up to the top of the bottom third. Yes, I was not considered high on the list of leaders, but I was not the bottom of the list either. I had learned from the experience and improved drastically and noticeably.

Where success is what the goal is, the result is not always the determining factor of the success. The experiences leading to that success make it more likely that success can and will be repeated. Moses failed to reach the promised land based on the experiences in the wilderness. Joseph failed in staying the traditional course of family. Yet, they both were and were considered great leaders based on experiences and life events that are recorded. When we look at the lives of Moses and Joseph, their continued movement forward through the hardship and failures and experiences, should inspire us to take the similar approach. We should not let those experiences get us down or derail us from our continued movement. We should be looking to those experiences as growth opportunities and steps in the process of becoming the leader that God is creating in each of us.

Where are you looking when it comes to growth in your leadership? Are you looking to the successes as the demonstration of your leaders? What if you took in all the experiences that led to the results and used those as steps in the process of your growth in leadership?