You’re not perfect.
Even if you think you’re perfect, you’re not perfect.
Every day we make mistakes.
Every day we do something that ends up hurting someone else.
Most times this is unintentional.
Nobody seeks out to go make a mistake.
We want to be perfect.
We strive for perfection.
We work hard to be better today than we were yesterday.
And we are going to work today to be better tomorrow.
We all want to get better.
That’s an important part of leadership.
But we will still make mistakes.
We all make mistakes, but it’s very devastating when you’re a leader inside of an organization making mistakes.
Those mistakes can have a devastating impact on your culture.
They can cause stress amongst your team.
It can make people distrust you.
It can move people into social or emotional isolation and ultimately to resignation.
They will quit on you; physically or mentally.
When you make a mistake, it’s an important part of your job to fix the mistake.
What do you do to fix the mistake?
- Acknowledge the mistake
A lot of leaders don’t even want to acknowledge that they made a mistake.
They try to keep moving on.
Nothing happened, or it wasn’t that big of a deal.
It may not be a big deal for you, but it likely is a big deal for the people that you lead.
So it’s important for you to acknowledge that you made a mistake.
- Apologize
Apologize to the person that you hurt or the team that you hurt.
If you made a mistake, be humble and apologize to your team.
Tell them you messed up.
It’s simple.
Just say, “I’m sorry. That was a mistake. I’m going to do my best to never do it again.”
- Take accountability
Allow your team to hold you accountable.
Communicate to your team that you’re expecting them to hold you accountable.
These are the things you must do to fix your mistake.
Acknowledge. Apologize. Accountability.
If you do this, you begin to restore the trust and the confidence in your culture.
