The Qualities of Leadership Traits-Four Steps- Part One
Can admitting your mistakes make you a better leader? Key leadership traits and 4 steps to address admitting your mistakes
Mistakes are impossible to avoid. Everyone makes them; of course, not everyone accepts responsibilities for them. In some cases, that’s okay. But if you’re a leader, it’s likely not. If you don’t acknowledge, learn from or even apologize for mistakes, you may lose the trust and respect of the people you’re leading.
Editor’s note: The Qualities of Leadership is part one of a two-part series exploring how leaders can tap into their emotional intelligence to lead, motivate and inspire others during challenging times. In part one, we focus on characteristics of leadership and the value of personal self-awareness applied to identifying and admitting mistakes. In part two, we offer steps for offering sincere apologies to regain trust and momentum.
A leader does not show weakness. A leader never admits when he is wrong. A leader does not apologize. How often do leaders and people in general fall into these thinking traps? Even when they logically come to understand these are not always true in challenging times, these often-become traps in our minds. In the midst of challenges, when problems seem to be knocking on your door, a good leader and a strong person will often put his head down and forge ahead. It’s difficult to inspire and motivate others if you stop in your tracks and appear uncertain about what course of action to take next.
Perception and action are intricately linked in what we do and in how others perceive what we do.
Leadership Traits
We generally consider that a good leader demonstrates certain traits, including:
- Confidence
- Decisiveness
- Strength
- Vision
- A positive attitude
- Communication skills
- The ability to delegate
- Intuition
- The ability to inspire others
There are many other traits that can appear on this list, such as intelligence, compassion, out-side-the-box thinking, optimism, tenacity and more. It’s not imperative that all of these traits be there but many of them are. Generally, a list of leadership traits doesn’t include admitting mistakes, because admitting mistakes implies experiencing failures. But, in fact, both experiencing failure and admitting mistakes should be on the list of leadership traits. By admitting mistakes, a leader has the potential to learn, grow and adapt. By admitting mistakes to others, a leader has the ability to build trust and inspire. Admitting a mistake at the right time, in the right way and in the right place can demonstrate strength, intelligence and show confidence, all of which are great traits for a leader to exhibit.
The Responsibility to Do Something
One can lead by example, influence, fear, with vision, intimidation, charisma and more. However, one might say real leadership requires a sense of a responsibility to do something for a purpose. The purpose may not always be positive but there is purpose. From where this responsibility or purpose comes varies.
Some leaders, for example:
- Have the responsibility put upon them by others.
- Feel or believe the responsibility of leadership is theirs and have no choice but to lead.
- Have a specific purpose situational, short or long term for which they take leadership.
- Are incidental, or some would say accidental leaders, whom others follow without the leader’s intention, consent or knowledge
Sometimes the pressure of responsibility and purpose can lead to tunnel vision. That in turn can lead to mistakes, which is often when leadership is tested. Great leaders have the opportunity to gracefully emerge from this experience.
The Trap of Leadership
The trap strong people or leaders often fall into is one of getting locked into pushing ahead blindly. Sometimes this is a result of seeing no other options, whether because they do not see them, are not capable of seeing them, or are unprepared or unwilling to look for them. This tunnel vision can arise from the failure or inability of leaders to admit they are wrong either generally or at any given time. In a crisis, strong leadership should include confidence, optimism, and clarity of thought and action. It doesn’t need to show weakness, doubt, equivocation or confusion. However, admitting a mistake can be informative and empowering. By admitting mistakes, a leader gains the ability to use new knowledge as he pushes ahead. Sometimes pushing ahead is the right thing to do.
Even when a mistake has been made, the course ahead may not be altered by the realization of the mistake. Admitting a mistake is only seeing, considering and understanding what mistakes have been made so they can be avoided or lessened in the future. Once a mistake has been made, it can be very difficult for a leader to see or admit it. But the way forward involves acknowledging and admitting a mistake.
Identify your mistakes to yourself: Look around for opportunities to identify your past and current mistakes. Taking stock primes, you to be diligent about your choices and actions. Understand that you’re not perfect and that somewhere along the way you made an error. To the best of your ability, identify the mistakes you’ve made.
Key leadership traits and 4 Steps for Admitting Your Mistakes
1.Own your mistakes:
Identify at least one thing you could have done differently to improve a situation or choice. It may not have been the initial action; it may have been missing a sign or step along the way. Own the mistake and determine where it threw you off course or may still have an impact.
- Learn from your mistakes:
Look for and consider alternate options you could have taken. You may not have seen them at the time because of your limited perception but consider if you can see the now.
- Identify your blind spots:
Assess what blocked you from seeing alternate options.
Identify what steps in decision making you may have missed or overlooked, including what information and what other voices you didn’t hear. Ask yourself why you didn’t listen to someone else or why you didn’t see an option. Blind spots can come from your own past experiences or your own makeup.
Some issues that may cause blind spots include:
- Fear, anxiety and emotional insecurity
- Prejudice or ignorance (including a lack of knowledge) and a lack of cultural exposure
- Pride, arrogance, ego or narcissism
- Poor self-awareness
- Poor or missing training and education
- Close-mindedness, stubbornness
- Inexperience or immaturity
Many of these blind spots are related to the development of poor emotional-intelligence skills. If you want to understand more about your potential blind spots, try completing some self-assessment activities such as a personality or emotional-intelligence assessment and include a 360-degree evaluation that gathers feedback from people who know you. If you can’t pinpoint and take ownership of your mistakes, you’re not ready to apologize, which means you’ll have difficulty leading those impacted by your mistakes moving forward. You may be able to admit you made a mistake, but as a leader, if you want to inspire your followers to follow you again, you must identify and then own your mistakes so you can offer a sincere apology. You may be sincerely sorry that a failure occurred and feel emotionally upset at the results of that failure, but if you don’t understand how or why the failure occurred, it will be difficult to inspire confidence in others that you’re able to avoid repeating the mistake. Admitting a mistake without apologizing can be an important first step and it can buy you some time, but a sincere apology is what will enable you to re-build trust. In part two of this series, we discuss options for apologizing for errors.
