As a leader, admitting failure is critical. Many people try to shrug off missteps as things that happen to everyone. Although doing so might seem harmless, there are many good reasons why you should admit you’ve messed up. Here are three:
- To connect with your employees. While it’s true that employees won’t want to discuss their own failures, they are more likely to connect with leaders who admit to theirs. Even if the specific failure isn’t applicable to staff, simply talking about it helps you connect.
- To learn. Failure is only positive when you learn something important from it and make the necessary adjustments. If you don’t do this, you cannot learn from outside perspectives and you’re more likely to stay in denial.
- To tolerate mistakes in others. As much as leaders openly say that failure must happen for innovation to be present, many get upset at staff who fail or struggle. That attitude shuts up staff, closes down experimentation, and obliterates creativity. Set an example that failure is OK.
Adapted from "Don't Be a Hypocrite About Failure," by Justin Brady
