There’s Value in Admitting a Mistake

As a leader, my first reaction to someone admitting a mistake can sometimes be, “Oh shit. What happened? What were you thinking? How am I going to fix this?” While I may not verbalize it that way, there’s a good chance it might be what I was thinking to myself.

It’s natural. It’s emotional. We’re hard wired to view mistakes in a negative way. Since we were toddlers, it’s been reinforced that mistakes are bad. Mistakes are wrong. Mistakes need to be avoided. Mistakes need to be punished. It’s fight-or-flight. It’s the fear that too many mistakes will lead to failure and being fired.

Unfortunately, poor leadership often leads to saying what you’re thinking and responding with first reactions. And far too often, those first reactions drive further admission of mistakes underground. People will always make mistakes. It’s human nature. But as a leader, you may stop hearing about them. Your team becomes afraid to tell you, or they get good at covering them up. Or worse yet, they stop making them altogether.

Why is that a problem? It’s because mistakes are often the by-product of innovation, development, education and change. And in small business, without any of the above, you’re as good as dead in the water.

When staff comes to you with a mistake, it also means they have self-awareness, humility and accountability. Those are all attributes we cherish, and it’s positive behavior that should be reinforced with encouragement.

As leaders, we need to re-train ourselves to react to mistakes differently. We need to think about how to turn what is inevitably a negative situation into something that can be learned from. The easiest way to do this is to start by saying, “Thank you for letting me know…”

It might go against our natural instinct, but it’s the right thing to do. Then, your next three questions should be these: