Leaders inevitably make some bad calls. Sandwiched between a host of quality decisions, leaders land on a decision they often regret later. Not only does this decision result in negative consequences, but it often is hard to unwind or revoke.
Recovering from a bad decision requires a unique strategy. Before acknowledging the bad call, good leaders attempt to understand what led to the choice and why it turned out so poorly.
Working backward from the outcome, leaders can pull apart the ultimate decision and examine the smaller decisions, choices, and analyses that may have been faulty. Identifying the factors that produced the bad decision is the first step toward recovery.
Once a leader has an inkling of what went wrong and why, they can benefit from thinking through the lessons learned and what specific differences they can make next time to avoid the error. Articulating the key lessons is essential work. A leader must be able to explain how they will avoid the same mistake next time before admitting to the larger team that the decision was faulty.
Now the leader is ready to be more transparent about what went wrong, why, and how the team can avoid such a bad call in the future. No need to apologize for the choice unless the decision has had a particularly negative impact on a specific audience. But knowing the lessons and what to avoid is not a plan of action.
The next step is to involve the team in crafting a process that will lead to a higher-quality decision next time. This plan should incorporate a variety of inputs by people affected and not affected by the decision. The more people who get the chance to work on the plan, the more the team will come to appreciate the power of learning through failure.
Once a leader articulates the lessons and acknowledges a decision to be faulty, the statute of limitations requiring a more serious mea culpa expires. Team members appreciate the admission and approach to fix the process and elevate a leader’s credibility when they do so.
Learning from mistakes is a value shared by all people in all cultures. Leaders can recover from a bad decision when they focus on the learnings, not just the mistake. In the hands of a skillful leader, the best teacher is the last bad decision.
A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.
