Creating Confident Leaders - The Power of Making Mistakes

15.03.2023

The Power of Making Mistakes

Hello everyone and I hope you have had a great couple of weeks.  This week I came across a blog I did over 3 years ago, and it really resonated with me.   The theme is the power of making mistakes.  I have added in some thinking from my most recent interactions, but it felt very current, so I hope you find it helpful.

The weather has been pretty wild across the UK over the last couple of weeks and as ever when Nature decides to provide us with a shake up, it tends amongst other things to highlight weaknesses and mistakes in our infrastructure. 

This got me thinking about mistakes and how we handle them.   I have to say that if we look at social media or the news, the first thing that seems to happen is a lot of blame gets thrown around.  People seem to think it somehow makes it better if they can find someone to blame……….and even more if they can find someone in a leadership role to blame.  We have seen so much of this in recent times with our political leaders across the world and while no-one can excuse some the really bad things that have happened, it feels important to consider just how we can handle mistakes particularly in leadership.

I see this a lot in my work with leaders too.   I don’t believe that its from bad intent or that its necessarily a thought through response, I think actually its such an habitual response that we see so much of in our media that its almost automatic.

As leaders, this is pernicious and paralysing.   I see two very big pitfalls for leaders in the way we handle mistakes:-

• They fear the response to mistakes and therefore, become over cautious and/or participate in blaming others to try to ensure that responsibility for mistakes doesn’t “stick” to them. This never works and only creates distrust and a risk averse culture.
• They feel that they have to keep all cards very close to their chest and not share whats going on with others unless they are sure that no mistakes can be uncovered. This also breeds suspicion and distrust.

Confident leaders must learn how to celebrate and learn from mistakes.   Everyone, absolutely everyone makes mistakes and most successful people will say that their mistakes have often been their greatest teachers.  Psychologist Jason Moser who studied the neural mechanisms that operate in people’s brains when they make mistakes (Moser et al., 2011), found that when we make a mistake, synapses fire. A synapse is an electrical signal that moves between parts of the brain when learning occurs.

In other words, our brains spark when we make a mistake and the potential for learning increases.

The work of Dr Carol Dweck on the importance of cultivating a growth mindset where we understand that effort and learning leads to higher achievement also evidences the fact that mistakes and our efforts to learn from them and become better as a result actually helps our thinking and potential for success.

It is a challenge, as it can feel embarrassing and exposing to admit mistakes so moving from that to seeing a mistake either by yourself or another as a cause for celebration and an opportunity for real learning is a leap.  However, those leaders who can do this, become role models who allow others to become more creative and innovative as they stop fearing mistakes and instead use them as a positive opportunity.   Successful leaders must encourage innovation and creativity, a willingness to take some risks and be bold. 

The flip side of this is forgiveness – leaders cannot eradicate a so called “blame culture” if they are unable to role model forgiving mistakes.   Think about it – how well do you role model forgiving a mistake and encouraging learning from it, both in yourself and others?  This is such a big deal for leaders and people look more at how you behave in this space than what you say.

So, when was the last time YOU made a mistake?  Whatever it was, how can you learn from it and celebrate the opportunity to learn.   How can you also share that experience with those you lead and role model forgiveness and learning to them?

It’s a challenge, but as a confident leader, I believe that you will be able to rise to that challenge.  Tap into the power of making mistakes and have a wonderful week.

Warmest regards

Lois

Ref : Moser, J. S., Schroder, H. S., Heeter, C., Moran, T. P., & Lee, Y. H. (2011). Mind Your Errors Evidence for a Neural Mechanism Linking Growth Mind-Set to Adaptive Posterror Adjustments. Psychological Science, 0956797611419520.

Carol Dweck is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton professor of psychology at Stanford University and the author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Ballantine Books) among many other books and publications on Fixed and Growth Mindsets