The experience taught Tan that there are more important things than hitting targets at all costs. Today, she prioritises collaboration, attitude and empathy in her team. Even well-meaning decisions that sound good in theory might in reality produce unsatisfactory results. Tan believes that leaders should be transparent and willing to learn from their mistakes in this regard. 

She recounts a time when she tried organising a cycling session with her team at 7am on a Sunday. Initially stunned by the luke-warm response, Tan realised quickly that many of her team members had small children, and needed their weekends to catch up on sleep.

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“That’s a good example of a decision made with the right intent that ultimately didn’t turn out too well,” Tan laughs. “Something I do appreciate so much about the team at Red Hat Malaysia is that safe space we’ve created where people can say, ‘I don’t agree with this,’ and be candid with their feedback. I always remind them that although I’m the country manager, I am still human. So sit down with me, let’s have coffee. Give me your feedback.

“When leaders are brave enough to admit when we’ve made mistakes, you then have a team that knows their boss is real. They’ll say, ‘I can take the risk, make mistakes, and come out strong because I know they have my back. I know companies struggle with this and it’s something I’m still learning today. The soundest advice I can give other leaders is to pause every once in a while and really listen to your team. Listen to understand and listen to empathise, not listen to respond.”

Acestar Group CEO and Young President’s Organisation (YPO) Malaysia member Natalie Sit has similar leadership advice to offer, reflecting back on the early days of starting her company. Despite coming from humble beginnings, Ipoh-born Sit was highly driven and worked hard to make a name for herself as a tech entrepreneur in the creative software industry.        

“In the first few years of starting my business, I had no clue on how to be a boss,” Sit says. “I didn’t know how to instruct people to do a job. In hindsight, a bad decision I made early on was getting a room for myself and separating myself from my team of just three or four employees at the time. I thought that was a norm,” she adds.  

“It was very isolating being alone in my room and working by myself. As an employee, I was used to working alongside co-workers, which was fun, and now I felt all alone. I quickly noticed this widening gap between me and my team and relocated to the common area, got myself a table, and sat beside them to work side-by-side. That made a lot of difference.” 

“I think if you want to start a business as a small team, those first five years are so crucial for building a team culture with strong bonds that will bring your company to the next stage.” 

Sit views the struggle of her early days as a motivation for doing well later in life, while not being defined by other people’s definitions of success or failure. “My early childhood was very challenging, but now I see it as a gift,” she says.

“I didn’t know what success was. And when you don’t know what success is, you will be bold to do anything. You have nothing to lose. The fear of failure didn’t really hinder me from trying. Today I look back at what I went through and given the choice, of course I wouldn’t go through it again today.”

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Passionate about empowering younger generations of creatives with the technical skills and confidence to thrive in creative industries both in Malaysia and beyond, Sit’s ability to think and be visionary was less motivated by striving for perfection but rather for progress.

“I work closely with a young team. I love seeing this younger generation, the future of our country and of the whole world,” says Sit, who aspires to help train and certify 3 million young people in the nation through her Creative Cloud Community (CCC) social enterprise. “But the challenge for them is being too constrained to a certain mindset. It could be due to exposure, their surrounding, the people they meet, the culture and so on—but they are so afraid to make different choices. It’s not that they don’t want to do it, they don’t have the confidence or strategy to keep moving forward. They just need a push and seeing them grow is truly fulfilling.”

Looking back at her own journey, she approached decision-making from a different mindset than a fear of failure. “As an entrepreneur, making decisions is your job. Every day you make decisions, from small things like which brand of toilet paper to buy for the office to how to close a million dollar deal,” she says. “Was I ever afraid of making a wrong decision? Entrepreneurs should not be afraid to make bad decisions. To me, there was no wrong or perfect decision, only the drive to move forward and go on with your business.”

Whether from the tech industry to fashion and other fast-changing sectors, the most successful leaders today are perhaps those who have changed their tactics, accepting failure as a natural process of their learning journey while refusing to be defined by it. 

With more than three decades running Melium Group and her thriving fashion legacy spanning Malaysia and abroad, the group’s founder and president, Dato’ Seri Dr Farah Khan, is a creative force to be reckoned in the fashion industry. “The hardest lesson I’ve learned is learning ‘to pivot’, the catchphrase that the pandemic engineered,” she says. “With AI and emerging new tech the world’s changing so fast you either pivot or get left behind.” 

“My philosophy on failure in work and life? Realise the failure, accept it and move forward,” says Khan.

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