Everyone fails!

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical perspective on how emotion regulation and self‐leadership can help move the experience of personal failure toward recovery. Design/methodology/approach – Using an integrative model, the authors discuss options that managers can take to decrease the effects of failure and move quickly into recovery. Findings – Using the context of failure, the authors suggest that emotion regulation and self‐leadership can work together to help those who have experienced failure move toward recovery and do so more quickly and easily than those who do not engage in theses activities. Practical implications – This paper provides helpful steps to individuals who have experienced failure, as well as to managers who may be in a position to help their employees cope with failure. The paper proposes a recovery path for times when failure occurs. Originality/value – This paper adds to the growing literatures of both self‐leadership and emotion regulation, bringing them together to inform those who have failed with ways toward recovery. The paper proposes that emotion regulation can complement self‐leadership to enhance the process of recovery from failure. It also extends the self‐leadership literature by integrating the concept of "natural reward" into the principal areas of cognitive self‐leadership and behavioural self‐leadership.