3 Leadership Lessons From Antoine Bourdelle

Never blame an error to justify your attitude. Never be ashamed of anything you do or think.

Antoine Bourdelle was one of the most expressive and powerful realist monumental sculptors of the first part of the 20th century. He admired the French Nobel Prize-winning writer Anatole France from a very young age. That’s why he made the portrait of the great bronze writer. The long figure expresses a great vivacity and at the same time an impressive inner balance.

At one point, Anatole France said of Bourdelle: “I know of only one defect, that of conceiving works beyond measure, and this is a noble ‘defect’.”

And Bourdelle’s response was: “Seeing my mistakes, that is where my strength lies. The path of truth is made up of recognized mistakes.”

I think it is useful to dwell on this point of view and consider whether it can be sustained today in the field of leadership.

Do you take into consideration the fact that the power of any performer lies in knowing how to recognize the “errors” in which the ideas of his creation are reflected, whenever he tries to prove to himself that he can conceive works beyond his power?

I believe that you can only contribute substantially to the development of your leadership if you are able to acknowledge your mistakes and bear the consequences. That is the strength of any elite performer. The path of truth – which Bourdelle said was made up of recognized mistakes – actually points to the optimal, but very difficult, and demanding path that connects your traits, qualities, and talents to true performance.

This path that you must take to complete your mastery, showing a positive orientation towards the good use and skill of your own strengths and abilities, is similar to the consumption of large amounts of chocolate. Just as chocolate can be harmful to health if the amount consumed exceeds the normal that the body can withstand, so your path to performance will not be excellent if it does not contribute substantially to the formation of your own personality, meaning if you do not start thinking, to act and produce more and better results.

If you are not inclined to take certain risks, if you do not try to outdo yourself, to enter a new field and to achieve a certain progressiveness of Creation, then you will never find that you are capable of doing what you thought was impossible.

How do you contribute to the development of your Creation? Do you have the sincerity and courage to admit your mistakes and bear the consequences? Have you chosen the path you need to take to complete your mastery? Does this path have the peculiarity of being “excellent”?

Are you able to outdo yourself and enter new ground that does not guarantee 100% achievement of a high level of excellence?

I am sure that excellence in leadership is based on a rigorous selection of errors that affect the operations adjacent to the creative act (whose sole purpose is to reveal your artistic aspirations, but also your highest traits). A performer should identify those error-correcting techniques that can produce constructive results for the consolidation of knowledge, with the involvement of other perspectives of art development, so that any achievement of it can be considered a masterpiece of creation.

The words of the great Romanian writer Nicolae Iorga support the truth transmitted by me. He said: “Laugh, not at the mistakes you made, but at the mistakes you never made, even though you had the opportunity to make them.”

A man without consciousness of his own mistakes will never be able to penetrate the hidden corners of excellence, he will never be able to create that connection between investment and profit, that is, between effort and the benefits of effort. Being aware of your own errors and mistakes is a way to highlight the most characteristic aspects of your own “leadership art” that you bring to life. Excellence is based on a rigorous selection of errors and mistakes in order to obtain a deeper and more comprehensive expression of your own individuality, of your inner world.

In order to live up to your own expectations, you must first reward your own efforts. How? By acknowledging your mistakes, that is, defining your weaknesses.

Whenever you make a mistake, whenever you detect an error or a defect in the mechanism of your own operation, fill in a check for yourself to pay a fine for it. A fine for every mistake. The check can be worth 5 RON, 10 RON or 25 RON. The effect will be amazing. Because this check validates your own contribution to increasing personal value. This check is a testament to your perseverance, your power to dedicate yourself to personal progress.

If you do not reward yourself for the “production” of mistakes, it means that you have not taken any steps forward, that you have not evolved at all in the handling of your own abilities.

Leadership is an indicator of the strength with which the performer acts on the discovery of errors prior to substantializing, to the fulfillment of creation, a process from which he learns to strengthen his self-confidence and work.

I have identified 3 Leadership Lessons From Antoine Bourdelle in this article:

1. The results obtained differ in their experimental errors. Never lose yourself while handling errors.

2. In order to rule out systematic errors as much as possible, you should always carefully consider the method of measuring the value that accompanies the result of your creation.

3. Never blame an error to justify your attitude. Never be ashamed of anything you do or think.