“I’ve often felt there might be more to be gained by studying business failures than business successes.” — Warren Buffett

Steve Jobs, who Fortune just named top CEO of the last decade, has described how “fortunate” he was to experience three traumatic set backs which all contributed to his stellar success — dropping out of college, his public firing from Apple (which he founded) in the 1980′s, and his struggle with cancer.

Soichiro Honda, founder of Honda Motor Co, writes, “To me success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents the one percent of your work that results from the ninety-nine percent that is called failure.”

The Bottom Line: Leaders don’t ‘waste failure’ — they learn from it, rise above it and try again.