How Owning Your Mistakes Builds Real Team Trust

13 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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1:14

In this reflective leadership vignette, the speaker recounts a recent incident where, during a leadership team meeting, they shut down a colleague’s contribution inappropriately. Recognizing the mistake, they apologized privately the next day and also issued a public apology in front of the team to demonstrate accountability. The speaker emphasizes the importance of seeking counsel from the entire team, encouraging open idea sharing, and preserving the hard‑earned trust with the colleague, which could have been lost instantly if left unaddressed. The narrative underscores that acknowledging errors, being transparent, and reinforcing trust are essential for long‑term team cohesion and credibility.

Chapters

I had a recent situation with one of— we were in a leadership team meeting and one of the team members said something that kind of took me off guard. And I shut her down inappropriately, by the way. It was not— that was not a good thing. And fortunately, we spoke the next day and I was able to settle that and apologize and say, I was completely wrong. I'm sorry. That caught me off guard. And that was inappropriate. And I was able to say that also in front of the team. Another time, because I wanted them to know that wasn't right. I expect counsel from all of you. I need counsel from all of you. So when you come up with an idea or something, the last thing I need to do is shut it down. I think the important thing is to recognize that situation. I have a lot of trust with that person, and we are friends, and I care deeply about her. And that trust is important to me. And fortunately, because we were able to talk about it, that long game, that trust is preserved. It took a while to build that with her when she first joined the organization. She was like, "Yeah, right. I don't know that you really mean what you say." But over time, she believed it. She seen it. She knows that I say what I mean and I mean what I say. And so, preserving that trust is important and understanding that you can lose it in an instant. If I would not have addressed that with her and acknowledged that I was wrong and she was right, that could have blown that right there.