Acknowledging vs. Crucifying Mistakes: Building Trust and Loyalty Through Understanding
Think back to the mistakes you’ve made at work. How many of them were 100% pure accident? We’ve been fully trained, have extensive experience, understand our jobs, and know our roles.
Everyone, once in a while, though, makes a mistake. Call it a lapse in judgment, a lapse in concentration, or simply just a human error. We instantly know we’ve made a mistake and, more likely than not, already hold ourselves accountable for it.
Rest assured, our bosses will find out we’ve made a mistake, call us into their office, and let us know that we made a mistake…which we already knew about…and for which we already feel remorse.
What, then, is the purpose of calling us into the boss’ office? Is it to reinforce the fact that we made a mistake? Is it for the boss to let us know that he knows we made a mistake? Is it to properly admonish us to ensure a one-off mistake never happens again?
I challenge all of my fellow bosses to simply let it go. Don’t say anything; just let it pass. Your employee already knows about the mistake and there’s nothing that we as bosses can say or do to undo the mistake or hold our employees more accountable than they already hold themselves. They have already committed to themselves that it won’t happen again.
There is a limit on this, however – the second time the same mistake is made by the same person, we need to step in. Once is a mistake; twice is a pattern. Likewise, egregious or severe mistakes require instant intervention. Short of that, however, just let it go!
It is absolutley appropriate to let your employees know that you know about their mistake privately, though; simply saying “dude….smooth move with X…” lets them know that you saw the issue but have no intentions to punish them. They’ll appreciate the fact that you knew, but chose not to crucify them. That is what builds trust and loyalty.