How Great Leaders Respond to Small Failures

One of my clients, who runs an amazing, difference-making, miracle-causing business got a voicemail from a concerned community member.  At a community event, they had seen one of her staff act inappropriately.  It wasn’t a fireable offense and the voicemail wasn’t specific enough to narrow down who the offender was.  At the same time, it left my client feeling like they had let their clients down, weren’t doing enough to train their staff, and worried about their reputation.  

I expect that business owners deal with things like this.  They find out that someone in their organization hasn’t met the organization’s expectations and it isn’t clear just who it was.  Having a useful way to deal with situations like this would make a difference.   

This is the coaching I gave them.  

First, take a deep breath.  You can’t control every little thing.  No one did anything that would result in termination.  This doesn’t undermine the profound difference you make for your clients.  Give yourself some grace.  

Second, the way they acted isn’t consistent with your company’s values.  There’s a gap between where you are and where you want to be, so it’s natural to feel some kind of way about it.  

Third, treat this like an opportunity to close the gap.  To do that, there’s a couple of places to communicate.  Call the person who left the message and thank them for bringing it to your attention.  Acknowledge that is not representative of what you strive for and then share with them what you will do about it.  Then, do what you say, and have this conversation with your staff.   

Start from: 

1. There’s nothing wrong.  No one is in trouble.  No one is getting fired.  

The tone of “something wrong” signals danger, and when danger is present people freak out.  This is where people start doing things to make sure the danger doesn’t get them, and patterns of behavior will take hold that will eat at your culture.  People will start gossipping.  They’ll start finger pointing - whether it be at leadership, “this place,” or other coworkers/teams/departments.  

2. Say what happened and only what happened.  “I got a call from someone in the community and they told me they saw…”  

You may want to add your opinions to what happened.  Resist that temptation.  You might want to say, “I got a really awful call…”  No you didn’t.  Your opinion about it was that it was awful.  You got a call.  The person who made it may have thought it was the greatest call ever made - a huge contribution to the public good.  

3. Point to what really matters that has this show up as a problem.  “We have a commitment to…”  

If you didn’t care about something, this wouldn’t show up as a problem.  Get in touch with and then communicate for what you care about.  Leadership is all about creating futures that inspire people.  Probably, whenever they did whatever they did that is having you now have this conversation with them, they weren’t connected to that future.  They were annoyed.  They were frustrated.  They were tired.  They forgot about the future you are working toward!  Remind them of it!  

4. Acknowledge that the transgressive behavior, whatever it was, had a valid cause.  

You may want to argue with this one.  Don’t.  Whatever they did, if it isn’t something you would fure them for, it had a reason.  Acknowledge it, as neutrally as possible.  It may be as simple as saying, “I’m sure, in the moment, there was a reason for this action…”  In any case, this reinforcers the assertion “there’s nothing wrong” and communicates understanding, which foundational to problem solving.  

5. Give them an appropriate replacement behavior for the next time those circumstances arise.  

Could they ask for help?  Could they get additional training?  Are there resources available?  Can they take a break?  Give them an alternative that would work.  This is important!  When you simply tell people what not to do, they start to feel constrained.  Let them know what works so they know there’s an avenue to dealing with their circumstances in a way that works.  

6. End the conversation while keeping the door appropriately open.  

Let your team know that, from your perspective, this is handled.  There aren’t going to be any more consequences and, unless you hear something else, there won’t be another conversation about it.  At the same time, if someone does feel compelled to talk about it, give them an appropriate avenue.  Let them know who they can address it with.  Human resources.  X or Y director.  It could be you personally.  The intention here is to minimize any gossip that may come of it.  You won’t eliminate the gossip, but saying this will have people think before they nudge someone after the meeting and say, “I think I know who she was talking about…”  

Here’s a sample script.  

“We got a voicemail from someone in the community who was concerned about the behavior they say from one of our staff.  Before we get into that, I just want to say that there’s nothing wrong.  No one is in trouble.  We’re not doing an investigation.  We’re treating this as a learning opportunity.  

The person said they saw…. 

Assuming this is true, it works against our commitment that our clients be fully taken care of, respected, and all our interactions be about uplifting them.  

Now, I know this work can be challenging and those challenges can drive up emotions.  

I want to remind you there are pathways to deal with challenges.  You can always ask us for support or ask for a break.  Let another staff know you’re going to take a few minutes and then find one of us to let us know what’s happening.  

This is all we’re going to say about it.  If there’s anything you want to communicate, any questions you have, any concerns you want to raise, the person to talk with about it is myself or our operations director.”