For many of us, screwing up is in our DNA. It happens. Blame Murphy if you like, but it happens. However, when this happens to someone on your team and you’re in a leadership role, the implications of a mistake can be far-reaching.

The most important aspect of these kinds of events, however, isn’t the incident itself. As a leader, the most important part is your reaction to these events. Those reactions are what end up defining you in the eyes of your team. Allow me to illustrate.

Navigation for tankers

In my younger days as a tank platoon leader, I was prone to taking some pretty bold risks. On one occasion, I decided it was a good idea to abandon the plan my commander had written and lead my platoon down a different route. That route happened to go through what the map said was a swamp. It didn’t look like a swamp to me, though.

I was wrong. It was a swamp. (Note: When the map says “swamp,” it’s a swamp.) Imagine a 68-ton vehicle stuck in mud 3–5 ft deep. Now imagine me standing atop said tank waiting to get chewed out by my commander. Can you say awkward?

When he showed up, he smirked and said something that caught me by surprise.

“That’s a good stuck.” It felt like he was a bear playing with a bunny before it mauls it.

“Yes, sir. It is.”

“OK. Help your crew get it out. Tell me if you need anything.” A wave of befuddlement washed over me.

“You’re not mad? Aren’t you going to rip my head off?”

“Why? It was a dumb mistake, but it’s not worth ripping you. Did you learn something about your vehicle’s capabilities? Are you ever going to drive through a swamp again?”

“Yes, sir. No, sir.”

“Lesson learned. Get it unstuck.” He strode off, leaving me in awe of how he transformed what could have been a significant emotional event into a positive learning experience. Needless to say, my (and my team’s) esteem for him rose dramatically that day. He knew we knew we had made a mistake—no reason to rub it in. Instead, he taught.

And what not to do

Contrast that event with another one of my infamous platoon leader screwups. (I made a bunch of oopsies as a young lieutenant.) At tank gunnery, we had a flash fire on my vehicle during a live-fire training. The fire-suppression system went off (which was loud and scary). We thought our ammunition had caught fire, too. We evacuated the vehicle. Our procedure for doing so was less than textbook. (Can you say “Keystone Cops?”)

Fortunately, everyone was OK. Unfortunately, a reasonably seasoned officer witnessed the event. In that moment, he chose to berate instead of teach. He ripped me for the awkward evacuation. He ripped me for some hydraulic fluid leaking from the bottom of my tank. (FYI: All tanks leak.) He did all of this in front of my soldiers and my peers.

Not once did he stop to ask if we were OK. Never did it enter his mind to find something to teach me. Nope. His sole intent was to excoriate. Sure, he got his point across, but he lost exponentially more points in respect than the single point in “rightness” he scored.

Screwups happen. As a leader, people will judge you by your reaction to those mistakes. Don’t take it lightly. Both of these incidents happened 15 years ago, and I remember them vividly. So do many of my friends who were there. Both of these officers formed their image as leaders in some small part those days—one favorable, one not so much.

How will you show up as a leader during the next screwup? Will you take that opportunity to teach instead of torture? It might seem small, but that event will be larger than you can imagine. Make sure you create that positive learning event.

Published Aug. 28, 2024, in The thoughtLEADERS Brief on LinkedIn.