Admitting Fault

One of the many lessons my dad taught me was being able to admit fault. This is a strong suit for great leadership. It's hard to believe or follow someone who wants to embody an image of perfection and no mistakes ever. Realistically though that's not what happens. I'm sure you can think of one time when someone you knew made a mistake, or was wrong about something.

The part that I find the most interesting is how admitting fault changes the dynamic of a conversation. Imagine for an instant that you made an error and refuse to own that. If you work with another party, they might start a discussion about that error, in an attempt to get to the bottom of it. They might start nicely, and allow you to explain and navigate the situation. As you respond, you deflect responsibility, using generic terms/jargon, and avoiding addressing the issue head-on. So the other party continues the inquiry expecting more detail, pressing on wanting to learn how it happened. Their intention is benign, they want to understand where the error originated and what can be done to remedy that. They also want to help create a better process so that it won't happen again. In response, you twist and turn, trying to avoid direct blame. And so on...

While the example sounds silly, I promise you this is real life. If we play this differently and instead recognize the error, own it, and propose a plan to avoid it in the future, the conversation will end much sooner. The other party can't push any further unlike the previous example. They might provide a different perspective on the path forward, in the interest of supporting a happy path. But there's no additional digging required, less pain to go through, and you foster a healthier relationship.

Thoughts

I don't like people hiding from their mistakes. I trust someone who can come clean without beating around the bush. I work hard to create an environment where people feel comfortable coming forward when they make mistakes. Nothing will save you from a toxic team culture though. Admitting fault or not they might end up making you feel bad anyway. On my team, we focus on solutions rather than finger-pointing. It's a waste of everyone's time otherwise. Let's find out how we got to the error, how to fix it now, and how to prevent it in the future. If you try and hide your mistakes, communication suffers, trust suffers, and most likely team culture is affected.