Leadership often requires conveying decisiveness and determination. Yet it’s natural to lose your moxie upon occasion. And picking yourself up after a setback can be challenging but it’s a key part of being in a leadership role. As a coach, I’ve had occasion to witness the questions leaders often ask themselves in private. This is Part 2 of a two-part post. This one addresses setbacks and losses; Part 1 explored doubts and fears.

“I am just so exhausted and tired of battling with the world. What can I do to regain my enthusiasm?”

Maybe it’s time to take a step back and get some perspective. It might even be time for a break, if you can afford to do so and not lose the gains you’ve made. Everybody needs sources of renewal and ways to regain their energy. If you’re dragging through every day, you are depleting more energy than you are renewing. Try to identify some things that give you pleasure, motivation, enthusiasm. Build those into your life, especially during the most difficult and stressful times. Evaluate the strategies you’re using for their effectiveness. It might be time to change your approach.

Maybe you’re trying to do too much by yourself. Having allies and collaborators can be a tremendous help. Even if you’re all exhausted together, there is something about being in the company of people who share a vision and a cause that offers strength.

You might want to ask yourself if your mindset is contributing to your exhaustion. People who view life as a series of battles can get so caught up in slogging through the mud that they miss the occasional limousine waiting to take them to their next stop. Although much of the work you have to do is hard, sometimes it’s not as hard as we make it out to be.

And maybe it’s time to turn the work over to other people, either temporarily or permanently.

“It seems like I’ve had setback after setback. I’m feeling so frustrated. What am I doing wrong?”

The first step here would also be to take a step back and regain your perspective. Getting the help of a trusted advisor might be useful since you’re probably too close and too emotionally involved to do the necessary analysis. You probably want to look carefully at every aspect of what you’re working to accomplish:

Are your goals too ambitious?
Have you failed to gain buy-in from people who are key to the success of your initiative?
Are you trying to move things along too quickly?
Are there factors in the external environment that are constraining you, which you haven’t sufficiently taken account of?
Do you need to improve your skills in certain areas or recruit others who already have the skills?

There are many other questions to consider but the key thing is to take a broad view and try to take your feelings out of the analysis, at least for the moment. In order to do that, it can help to do some venting at the beginning and then settle down and look carefully at the situation.

“I’m trying to have an impact on something that’s important to me, but I can’t get enough people on board. What can I do to get people’s buy in?”

Sometimes you need to start small and take an action that is within your control before other people will join with you. This can serve both as evidence of your commitment to the issue at hand and also as a concrete example for others that something can really be done.

Let’s say you’re interested in helping a friend of yours who has a disability find a job in a museum. You have approached the various employment services providers in your area with the prospect and none of them seem either willing or able to make that happen. You have several options at that point. You can continue trying to persuade the agencies that this is the right thing to do. You can give up and let your friend fill one of the jobs an agency is able to find for him. Or you can help him yourself. None of these is necessarily right or wrong. However, the third option does enable you to have the kind of impact you are seeking more directly. If you are successful, you might eventually approach an open-minded agency with the proposal that they take responsibility for ongoing support, if necessary.

This approach—taking personal responsibility to bring something you care about into existence—is how virtually all developments in service get started. For example, in the 1930s, families of individuals with developmental disabilities started to network in an effort to secure services for their children. The first national meeting of parents was convened in September 1950 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and evolved into an organization called the Association for Retarded Children (ARC). Thanks in part to high profile support from individuals such as President John F. Kennedy, who had a sister with developmental disabilities, community services were developed and citizens began reevaluating their views about people with developmental disabilities and their families.

In this example, and in many others, people took action without waiting to convince others to join them. Along the way, many others became engaged or the developments would not have occurred. It’s not that you don’t need other people; it’s that often you don’t need others to set things in motion.

“We just had a big setback. How can I help my people rally?”

We already looked at this challenge from the personal point of view earlier. I recommended taking a step back and regaining your perspective. That’s the work you need to do as a leader in order to be responsive to others who have also been affected by the setback. You won’t be any good to your constituents if you’re reeling from the effects of the setback and feeling profoundly discouraged. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to show some vulnerability: you’re human, after all, and you can receive support from the people you lead as well as offering support to them.

Once you’re prepared emotionally, it’s important to learn from the experience. While the temptation may be to put it behind you as quickly as possible, don’t do it too quickly or you are likely to encounter a similar situation in the future. Try to be as objective and dispassionate as possible in evaluating what happened. Avoid personalizing. “She’s a nasty person” is less helpful for learning than “She wasn’t completely bought in to our vision.” There is not much you can do about someone’s personality but if you conclude that someone wasn’t as aligned with your aims as you anticipated, you can take many kinds of actions in the future to increase the likelihood that the person will be more in sync. Maybe you’ll want to do this after a contained period of venting. After all, we’re only human!

After setbacks, as a way to collectively put things in perspective, it’s sometimes helpful to review previous accomplishments. But not just from a cheerleading point of view. Instead, you can pay close attention to why those worked and what was different about this situation.

Ultimately, it’s helpful to remind yourself of the quote by Ron Heifetz: “leadership requires the courage to face failure daily.” Because the truth is, if you are really exercising leadership, you are hanging out in uncharted territory a lot of the time: why wouldn’t there be setbacks?

“As a result of exercising leadership, I just experienced a huge loss. Is this really worth it?”

Leadership is risky. Taking on leadership roles opens one up to all sorts of consequences. As leaders, we regularly risk being criticized or blamed by others, being isolated from our peers. We can even risk loss of employment if we take a stand on an unpopular issue in the workplace.

The risks are real and no matter how well prepared we think we are, we can be caught off guard when something bad happens as a consequence of our leadership. Before you assume a leadership role on a particular issue, it can be helpful to do an inventory. Consider the potential risks, how well prepared you are for their happening, what allies you have, and what other strategies you can employ to minimize the chances that the risks will be realized. Keep in mind that in spite of this kind of thoughtful planning, it’s easy to be caught off guard when consequences do occur.

When something does happen, you might be tempted to say “Forget it, it’s just not worth it.” And that may be so. But a first step might be to take a step back. Give yourself some breathing room to see if you can get some perspective. Check in with your deeply held values and beliefs: Is the work in alignment with your core values? If so, perhaps the costs are bearable. What would be the consequences of giving up this work? Most of us are willing to live with numerous costs in order to live in a way that is consistent with our core beliefs. It can also be helpful to review the stories of people who stood by their commitments even when difficult things happened to them, as a reminder and a source of inspiration.

In this series, I’ve tried to address some common questions and concerns that arise in the course of exercising leadership. Perhaps you have another concern or question. If so, feel free to email me. I’d be happy to address it and, who knows, maybe someone else has the same question.

As always, please leave a question in the Comments.

P.S. If you like this blog post, sign up for my newsletter, right here. You’ll receive monthly updates on new posts and upcoming events. Also consider forwarding this to a friend and inviting them to sign up.