What is the leading cause of failure in business or in life? What is the bottom line factor, which will increase the odds to near certainty that you will fail? From research done 10 years ago to a recent cover article in Fortune entitled "Why CEO’s Fail" the conclusions are the same. Failure is best generated by a "lack of emotional strength", by a lack of courage.

Yes, it takes courage to successfully lead your life, your team, your organization. In prior articles, I have highlighted the first three key acts of courage: the courage to dream, the courage to see current reality and the courage to confront. However, if you are lacking in the courage to be confronted, to invite critical feedback, to listen non-defensively, you are setting yourself up to be blindsided. When you are deaf to critical issues, you lose the opportunity to make developmental improvement personally, in a relationship, in a team, or in an organization.

For example, in World War I, General Pershing had a young officer working for him named George Marshall. Marshall was in charge of reporting on the provisioning and preparedness of the front-line American troops in the war. The young officer concluded that they were ill-prepared and ill-provisioned at the time. He delivered a scathing report to Pershing in front of Pershing’s staff. The other staff officers expected Pershing to summarily discipline, if not dismiss, this young, brash officer. Instead, Pershing had the wisdom to hear the confrontation in terms of the possible impact on the lives and well-being of American soldiers. He took the words to heart and congratulated and rewarded Marshall for his courage and dedication in ensuring the job was done right.

This young officer went on to become a general and was instrumental in leading the Allied war effort in World War II. The courage to be confronted is complicated by the fact that many people confuse being forceful, direct and outspoken with being strong. Though these characteristics have a strong impact on others, they are often wielded by someone with a brittle ego.

In day-to-day practice, where it really counts, true strength depends on someone who does not have the fragile and defensive ego structure to shut down critical feedback about themselves or an operation. The truly strong invite criticism, listen to it with an open mind and heart and then act accordingly, not based on what their ego would dictate.

Jack Welch, the widely admired CEO of General Electric, makes monthly and daily invitations for people to argue with him and to speak up with different viewpoints. One recent example having global impact was when Bill Gates, head of Microsoft, was still focused on the PC and not the Internet. Two junior engineers sent him an e-mail challenging him about missing the Internet opportunity. Gates went down and talked to the two engineers, not to chew them out or have them fired or disciplined, but to listen to their criticism. As he listened, he realized the truth of what they were saying. Over the course of a weekend, he was able to engage his team and totally redirect the vast behemoth of Microsoft in a totally new direction, which encompassed an Internet strategy and led to dominance in several areas.

True strength is found in the willingness to hear the hard messages. The strength to be confronted is the willingness to invite the critical feedback and hear it, especially when it is about you and your own leadership and/or behavior. My personal experience over the past 28 years of working with others has been that many of those who readily dish it out, can’t take it when it is served back to them. In other words they lack the courage to be confronted. This is very dangerous. Why is it dangerous? When you are defensive, you shut down vital information channels regarding your impact on others who you wish to influence and core issues or problems that need to be addressed.

A leader who lacks the courage to be confronted is, in essence, like someone leading children across a busy street while wearing a blindfold. You may indeed get to the other side, but it is not the most efficient, effective or safest way to get across, especially when others are holding to your hand and expecting to be led across. Additionally, when you really look at the great number of opportunities for being blindsided and run over, the chances are stacked against you.

Most of the good, competent and hard-charging individuals who derailed their careers and/or their families have done so because they lacked the courage to hear the criticism or confrontations of others. It is because they simply would not see and hear the pain and issues regarding their behavior or the direction and decisions they were making. This is tragic since it is largely predictable and avoidable.

Everyone knows that at a basic level, one of the most important things you can do to be successful is to always be well-informed. If that is the case, then why do so many fall into this obvious failing, especially when they have seen it happen to others? The answer is found in three simple words: ego, fear, and impatience.

Ego can be fatal, especially for those who become "a legend in their own minds." Ego is not just a little catch-all word, but in essence, it represents our normal, conscience sense of self. It represents out carefully constructed, crafted, projected and protected identity. We have a lot at stake in being seen a certain way, in maintaining our reputation, in thinking and feeling in specific ways about ourselves. When our egos or image of self is punctured, we feel pain and anxiety. We, naturally, develop defenses against this happening.

And what weapons do we have in our personal defense arsenal? We become experts at one or more of the following:

Denial. We just won’t admit it or even hear what is being said.

Blame. We find fault first, putting others on the defensive. (This is called a preemptive strike.)

Justification and rationalization. We can explain away anything that doesn’t fit, engaging in great creative acts of mental contortion. (Remember, the now famous "it depends upon what the definition of is, is" per President Clinton.)

Stonewalling. Delay, obfuscate, refuse to respond, seem to go along, but raise consistent objections and barriers.

Withdraw. Refuse to be present, look like you listening while your mind is somewhere else, be unavailable.

Finally, punish. For those who do speak up, make an example of anyone who has the audacity to confront you.

Which is your favorite ploy? What is the price you pay for engaging in it? Experience teaches that it is far more than you realize.

The second greatest barrier is fear. This can be a huge barrier to learning and staying informed. The more defensive you are, probably the more you are driven by anxiety or fear. The inner anxiety bubble driving the defensiveness takes you ability to listen and learn quickly and slows it to a crawl. Because of our fear, we do not learn new behaviors quickly or easily. We are not open to learning more effective ways of connecting, working and relating to or influencing others.

What are we really afraid of? The greatest fears are of being embarrassed, shamed, wrong or of failing. If we don’t learn and practice new steps, how will we successfully dance to the changing music, rhythms and demands of the rest of our lives?

Paradoxically, giving in to the fear and being defensive maximizes the chances that you will fully encounter the very things you defensiveness is designed to keep you from feeling. The only antidote to fear is courage to really listen, even invite the critical feedback and then appreciate those people who had the courage to "hurt you feelings."

The third great barrier is impatience. Impatience is stunning as a power to abort successful outcomes. Imagine the farmer who would plant a watermelon seed, come out two days later, not see a sprout. Decide it must not be working, dig it up, and plant something else. Certain processes and things take time. Learning complex, new behavioral skills takes time. Coaching people and seeing them change and shift takes time. It takes time to win over new customers or change the way people see you, your organization, your leadership or the way that you "show up" in relationships. If you are not willing to curb your impatience, to stick with it, to persevere, you will not learn or grow. Are you being too impatient or moving too fast?

These three barriers—ego, fear and impatience—make people unable to learn. They blind them to opportunities and, more dangerously, make them oblivious or slow to discern challenger, opportunities and dangers. If you wish to be more powerful and more effective, engage the courage to be confronted. Begin to ask people a series of power questions. What do I do that you find most difficult, offensive or painful? What could I start doing that would make it easier for you to do your job? If I could change just one thing about the way I interact with of work with you, or with the team, that would make the biggest positive difference, what would it be and why? With your family, what is the one thing you wish I would address that that detracts from your having a greater sense of joy or feeling loved and appreciated in this family?

Ask your spouse, ask your children, ask your employees the questions that really help you look at yourself and their needs. Support them to have the courage to help you focus on the strategic issues and the critical aspects of the way you operate. Listen in-depth, in detail and listen from you heart. If you so this, your power as a leader, as a parent, as a spouse, as a friend, as a son or daughter, as a citizen will grow immensely. Are you listening?