LEADERS ARE PERSISTENT
have gone through Harrow,” a contemporary remembered.
“He must have gone under it.” When he was 15 years old,
Winston’s father worried about him. All he could see was that
the boy was untalented, that there was no prospect of his going
on to Oxford, that he was not even good enough to be a lawyer.
There is a lesson in such stories; different people develop at
different rates.^18
- “It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how
the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have
done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually
in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and
blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short
again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great
devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the
worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his
place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know
neither defeat nor victory.” (Theodore Roosevelt)^19
- Francois La Rochefoucauld said, “Almost all our faults are more
pardonable than the methods we think up to hide them.”^20
- In a high-trust culture, honest mistakes are taken for what
they are – an opportunity to learn...People are not truly self-
governing unless they are free to fail.^21
- Failure can be one of life’s best teachers if people are given an
opportunity to correct their mistakes and succeed. On the other
hand, if handled improperly by the leader, failure can completely
destroy an individual’s self-image, motivation, and productivity.
Failure can turn a courageous, insightful person into a fearful
and defeated one.^22
- SELF-SINS:
- All Christians are called to develop God-given talents, to make
the most of their lives, to develop to the fullest their God-given
powers and capacities. But Jesus taught that ambition that
centers on the self is wrong...^23
