Failure, mistakes, slip ups – we have all made them.
As leaders, we often feel pressured into being right. We see this modelled every day on the news, especially at the moment around Covid and Brexit. The Government are human and make mistakes, however, rarely hold their hands up. Any sign of a mistake and it’s jumped on immediately by the press and opposition. Then, we’re into a spiral of negativity and blame.
The same can happen in business, if we don’t look out for it. But, what’s the cost to us of this way of leading?
You quickly lose the trust of your team.
It’s understandable, since admitting a mistake as a leader can feel as though you’re admitting to failure in your role, which can bring up feelings of uncertainty and worry about the consequences. Could your team lose respect for you, if it appears that you don’t know what you’re doing? Could you lose your job? Or not get a promotion?
In reality, it’s the opposite. Admitting to failure actually creates trust within your team, which is fundamental to its’ success. It’s the absence of trust that causes dysfunction in a team.
As a leader, you might think that maintaining your position on a topic will solve the problem. But in reality, you’re eroding the trust of your team.
When that happens it starts to eat away at the culture. Your team may start to gossip more, feel disgruntled and office politics start to get in the way.
Humans make mistakes, it’s inevitable, and it’s how we learn. So, people need to see that it’s ok to make a mistake. As a leader, when you do that, you are role modelling that it’s ok to try but to sometimes get things wrong. It’s what you do to correct it that’s important.
It shows your team that if they make a mistake, they will be able to approach you honestly, rather than trying to hide the mistake. When mistakes are hidden, you risk the wrong actions being taken – potentially causing a bigger problem than you started with.
There are no “buts” in an apology…
You also need to be mindful about how you admit the mistake and apologise. Sometimes we can admit them but then try to make it ok by adding an excuse or attributing blame.
We saw this play out last week when the open letter from BrewDogs employees went viral. The founders made a public apology which felt to me as if they were saying “sorry, not sorry”. It seems that by saying there’s a group of very satisfied staff, as well as this group of disgruntled staff, they were hinting that it might be the staff and not the leadership that was the problem. I wonder if the existing team feel assured that the culture assessments that BrewDog are now conducting will be meaningful? In my view, it would be far better to accept there are disgruntled staff and that they need to investigate. State their intentions to address the findings and give a view about how they intend the culture to be in their company.
It can sometimes feel difficult to take on board feedback as we all want to do our best. It can be uncomfortable and even embarrassing, but honesty and humility will make you more human and relatable.
Consider that it’s always better to work with the facts, even if they make you feel uncomfortable. People genuinely want to help you succeed so will rally around to help, or forgive you if you are open about what happened.
So, know that if you try this, you may have feelings of stress, embarrassment, or guilt come up. If you do, then there are steps you can take to calm these feelings. Often, once you have admitted the mistake or failure, you will feel relieved.
People have much more respect for someone who can admit they got it wrong. The consequences are far less serious and a solution will be quicker to find.
If you would like some support with leading your team then I help individuals with coaching and businesses with leadership consultancy.
Book a call and we can talk about whether I can help you.