10 Tips for Leaders Who Get Lost: Finding Magic On the Way

By definition, a leader is someone other people follow. We trust leaders to make good decisions. They have the knowledge, vision, and integrity to move people and situations to a new place. We measure our leaders by their success. But what if we also measured leaders by their limitations? How might others benefit from seeing their leaders stumble?

Learning from a leader who messes up

For 13 years, I was a Girl Scout leader. If my girls learned one practical skill, it was how to get lost. I can get lost anywhere. I got us lost while wandering the woods, navigating cities, hiking at camp, using public transportation, touring museums, and trying to find hotel rooms. Yet in every instance, my girls saw that when we got lost - when I failed to lead well - I never panicked or blamed anyone. Ultimately, we always got where we were going. And sometimes, we discovered magic along the way.

Finding Fondue

At the zenith of our scouting adventures, we got lost hiking in the Swiss Alps. As we bumbled along, suddenly, in the middle of a high-altitude cow pasture, a bistro the size of a garden shed appeared like Brigadoon. We feasted on the best cheese fondue on the planet. I’ll never eat such fondue again because I’d get lost trying to find the bistro. But it was magical and worth getting lost.

Practical tips for making the most of getting lost

As an expert at getting lost. here’s my advice to leaders on getting lost - literally or figuratively - and still finding a way to inspire others:

1. Do your homework. The better you plan, the less likely you will get lost.
2. Equip yourself with a strategy to guide you from point A to point B.
3. Include your whole team in planning so everyone knows what you are doing and where you are going. Hopefully, somebody will notice when you begin to veer off track.
4. Include people outside your team in your process. Progress can be myopic. An outsider might sooner recognize that you are in trouble. Also, if you don’t arrive at your destination, someone knows to go looking for you.
5. When you suspect that you’ve gone astray, STOP! Don’t keep going, hoping the situation will improve. It won’t. Stop and assess. Consider your surroundings. Evaluate your situation against your plan.
6. When you discover you are lost, stay calm. There’s no rehashing what should have been. Return to the last point of certainty and re-orient from there.
7. Repeat this process until you get where you’re going or arrive someplace better.
8. Assess the journey. Look at why you got lost. Determine whether getting lost was a failure on your part or if unexpected factors blew you off course.
9. Recognize unexpected positive outcomes that occurred because you got lost. This is your fondue moment.
10. Incorporate what you learned in future plans. In other words, add a stop for fondue.

written by Lisa Brown
August 2024