I have an 8 year old daughter who hates to take responsibility for her mistakes.  When I call her on something she immediately goes into the blame game.  Sometimes she blames today’s problem on something that occurred several months ago .  I work with her all the time to take responsibility for her actions, at least her part.  Most things are not ALL your fault, generally there are other people or systems in play, but you did play some role.  She is 8, we’ve got time.  I encourage both of my girls to make mistakes because that means they are giving things a try.  To create creative, confident people they have to start somewhere, but here’s where things can go wrong, punishing the mistake.

As an Organizational Development consultant I find that in most organizations a mistake is punished.  This creates a staff of people who do not take risks.  Leaders fall into this as well.

Do you want to build credibility with your teams?  Admit mistakes.  No one is perfect, we say that all the time, yet we have an expectation that Leaders will be.  Character is important to those who are lead by you, however, your character is not tarnished so much by a mistake you make as it is by how you admit or correct the mistake.

Here is what we must remember, we judge ourselves by our intentions, others judge us by our actions.  You can intend to do all sorts of things, but it is your action or inaction that speaks most loudly. When you have made a plan, taken action and it hasn’t gone as desired, it is perfectly acceptable to say “well, that didn’t work as I’d hoped, because of that…”, rather than pretend the error didn’t happen or WORSE, blame the problem on someone else.

Many of us are leaders in positional power.  We have been given this leadership role by promotion, the leader role can be given and taken away, people are not following you because they want to, but because that is the structure they work under.  This doesn’t mean you can’t become the leader they will WANT to follow.  Every choice, every day, is an opportunity to prove yourself as a leader who is there to support the team or one who is there for self-promotion. Just because you were given this role doesn’t mean you can’t earn it.

Communicate with your team the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Give them the information they need to have a better view of the organization, their position and you.  If you’ve messed something up, admit it, correct it and move on.  Follow that same policy with your team.  Some of the best advancements have been made because of mistakes.  Let your team try new things, some will be successful, some won’t.  As long as the mistakes are made while trying to improve the situation, let that be a learning experience, find the flaws and move along. You do not have to be perfect, but they don’t have to be either.