Failures are natural events on the path to success. One has to learn lessons from the failures, improvize upon the steps and move ahead by putting in all efforts. This article provides important points of learning and reflection for business leaders.

Failures are more common than success. It is said that failures are stepping stones on the path to success. After all, C, the 16th President of the US handled a spate of failures and successes in equal measure. If one were to look at the trend in his career history, one would find a gradual progression in his career from the time he was defeated for state legislature in 1832 until the year he was elected as the President in 1860—a journey of 28 years. Those who learn from failures and incorporate the lessons learnt into their next plan of action, stand a better chance of success than those who continue to repeat the same mistakes or ignore the consequences of a mistake.

The latest development in the area of failure analysis and learning from failures is to document the mistakes made and to highlight what one learnt from these mistakes. There are also reports of companies celebrating intelligent failures. Intelligent failures are what should be encouraged as demonstrated by Intuit Inc. These are failures that happen early and inexpensively providing new insights. It is a process of failing fast and cheap. However, all this does not mean that failures should be encouraged without regard to the costs of doing so.

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