Introduction and Today's Question

[00:00:00] Karen: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals. 

[00:00:08] Paul: I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:00:10] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:00:11] Paul: Each episode we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, can the boss admit a mistake?

Understanding Structural Hierarchy

[00:00:20] Karen: So we're talking today about spaces where there is hierarchy, and particularly where there's structural hierarchy, meaning we planned it this way, we intend it to be. So there are some people who have decision making authority that impacts other people and we did that on purpose and for a reason.

[00:00:36] Karen: And we probably had other episodes where we talked about if that's a good idea, but we're in that moment. And it might be the boss, like it might be a corporate setting where there is actually a report structure. It might be the board of a volunteer organization where the board makes decisions on behalf of the organization that impact other people.

[00:00:54] Karen: It can even be someone within a pretty egalitarian system that that person is delegated with a set of decision making tasks. All of those are things I would describe as structural hierarchy. 

The Hesitation to Admit Mistakes

[00:01:07] Karen: And when we have that kind of hierarchy, we have noticed, Paul and I, that there's a fair tendency for the people holding the power.

[00:01:17] Karen: So the boss or the board or whoever it is that is in that top dog decision-making role, to be very hesitant to ever admit that they've done anything wrong. And we think that's not useful. But we wanna explore kind of how it comes about, why it happens, why people do that, what's the story we think they might be telling themselves when they do that, and how could we potentially convince them that there's a better way?

[00:01:43] Paul: And I do wanna be very clear, like we are talking specifically around structural hierarchy, where there is, you know, by virtue of the position that someone or some people are in, there are sets of things that they can do that other people can't. This isn't about their influence, this isn't about their sort of individual expertise, right?

[00:02:00] Paul: This really is about a structural element. And as we've talked about, hierarchy is useful for certain things. It's an organizing principle, it's not a reward function as I think we've said before. And there's, you know, a number of psychological studies that bear this out.

Psychological Factors at Play

[00:02:13] Paul: That one of the things that having structural authority does is it actually reduces people's cognitive empathy, right? That you are less able to take others' perspectives when you have power, which is fascinating, right? And a thing that, you know, rightly makes us suspicious at times of people who are in authority.

[00:02:32] Paul: And also those of us who've, you know, seeing the harm that can be done from positions of power. When we end up in those situations, kind of going, oh, well, I'll never do anything like that, and then we don't necessarily end up using those abilities well. We marginalize them. But I think there is this piece of, it is a pattern that I see over and over again that's kind of weird, but also kind of makes some sense that when something goes wrong blame flows down an organization, 

[00:02:58] Paul: It's never senior leadership that is to blame, right? Or who necessarily takes responsibility for a thing. It's often somebody else, or I've seen this before where there is just kind of the passive voice, right, of mistakes were made, right?

[00:03:13] Paul: Communication occurred and sometimes, there's a lot of face saving that happens around this. Many organizations and groups are sensitive to the notion of embarrassing people who are in positions of structural authority. It happens, I think there's a lot of different reasons, why it happens, but it's a pretty common phenomenon in almost every organization and corporation that I've been part of.

[00:03:37] Karen: My personal theory is that it relates to the childhood experience of looking to the adults in your life, your parents, your teachers. And we just think they're so big and so smart, and they have everything figured out, and we ask them questions and they know the answers and all of that. Like there's that image of this is what a person of authority is like, and when we grow up and we become a person of authority, we think we have to be that.

[00:04:02] Karen: Or at the very least, we have to appear to be that. And so there's this image of I've got it all in control and you all can count on me because I am so on top of things. And we think somehow, and I think we mostly don't think, I think it's like deep in our psyche because childhood learnings hang out there deep in the psyche causing us to behave ways without actually convincing us to think about it.

[00:04:25] Karen: But I think somewhere deep in there, there's this story that if I say I made a mistake, or if I say I'm responsible for something that went wrong, that that tarnish is going to cover me and I won't be respected anymore and I won't have the influence that I need to do my job and I might even get fired and you know, there will be a rebellion, a revolt, a mutiny, and all will go south, not only for me, but for the organization as a whole and everybody loses.

[00:04:54] Karen: Therefore, I have to continue to look perfect.  

[00:04:57] Paul: I think there are a lot of those scripts that play unconsciously in our head. Like I've seen it in a couple of different ways. Like there's with, you know, I coach a lot of, of senior executives and leaders and things like that, and so I have conversations with them about these kinds of things, and sometimes the thing that I hear is, well, I need to appear strong and confident, you know, that if I admit that I've made a mistake or this is a problem, or whatever have you.

[00:05:23] Paul: Then the people who are looking to me to inspire them, to lead them, will not have confidence in me. I hear that, and I understand that as an argument, even though I think it's incorrect as we'll get to, I think in a few minutes. The thing that I don't hear as often, but I think is also true is kind of the inner version of that is the whole, like, if I admit that I don't know what I'm doing, like people will find me out, right?

[00:05:47] Paul: I think that everybody else has it together and so I can't personally admit it, right? There's that degree of admitting it means that I'm a failure, that it's blowing up the small thing into something that's much, much, much bigger. As opposed to saying, I made a mistake in this case, or, I wasn't clear about the instructions that I gave about what we wanted to have happen.

[00:06:09] Paul: That somehow saying that turns into, so therefore, I am unqualified to hold any leadership authority position ever. I think we sometimes we unconsciously blow that up in our heads and I often think when I work with leaders that like both of those things are going on at the same time. They're saying people need to believe in me to have confidence in me, so therefore I need to appear this way.

[00:06:34] Paul: And internally they've got this other thing going on. Of course, the funny part about it's, that just reinforces the whole story because I do think that we oftentimes have not had good role models for people in positions of authority, admitting mistakes and taking responsibilities for failure.

[00:06:54] Paul: We don't know how to do it well, we've never seen it, and therefore we assume that it can't be done, shouldn't be done. And the very least, we certainly don't know how to do it well. 

The Importance of Vulnerability in Leadership

[00:07:04] Karen: Yeah, I think the rescripting that we wanna do here. I don't think we wanna ignore that there are certain hierarchical environments where in fact, showing weakness will be taken advantage of and knocked down.

[00:07:19] Karen: I really don't ever wanna work in one of those. I don't think they're healthy places, but those places exist and if you're counting on one for your income, then you have to make your choices about that. But assuming you're not in that category, which I think most of the time we're not, I think generally speaking, we're in a place where what's useful actually is for the leadership to have influence. 

[00:07:39] Karen: And in order to have influence, you have to have trust. So there's this whole piece about I do want them to have confidence in me. I do want them to believe that I can do what I'm supposed to do, and that I will do what I'm supposed to do, and that I will be here for them, and it's not necessary for them to believe that I'm perfect.

[00:07:58] Karen: That's handy because they're not going to believe that I'm perfect. Like if I can maintain the illusion that I'm perfect, then maybe that would be worth doing. But I can't because humans and unforeseen circumstances and any number of things, like bad things happen in organizations and it has to be talked about and leadership always has something to do with it.

[00:08:18] Karen: If I wanna have the kind of influence that I need to be an effective leader, I need trust. And in order to trust me, they're going to have to see me being vulnerable. 

[00:08:27] Paul: Yeah. There's a staple of the business literature is Pat Lencioni's, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and he talks about like that, that root level.

[00:08:35] Paul: He talks about the importance of vulnerability based trust. The ability to see others as actual human beings who make mistakes, who commit errors, things like that. That disclosure, that kind of being able to say, yeah, this one's on me kind of thing, builds trust, right?

[00:08:52] Paul: It builds influence. The interesting thing is it also does not diminish our structural authority, right? If we're talking about people who are in positions in the hierarchy, like me saying, I made a mistake here, or, yeah, this one's on me. I need to take responsibility for it. That doesn't diminish the actual structural power that I have.

[00:09:11] Paul: And as you point out, it builds the influence that I have. It increases trust in me. You know, if something goes wrong that was under my purview, and I'm able to say, you know, miscommunications happened here, and as the person who's accountable for this outcome, that's on me. So what I'm noticing about that is here's what I need to do, what I wanna do differently in the future here, you know, here's the impact that it had. 

[00:09:35] Paul: Like the buck stops with me if I'm able to say that. That helps people trust me a heck of a lot more than again, the passive voice. Mistakes were made, miscommunications happen. We could never have foreseen any of the things that went wrong, kinds of things. All those things might be true, but they don't build trust.

[00:09:56] Paul: They don't actually help me build my influence with the group, and it really doesn't cost me much to admit particularly small things, right? It's like, Hey, I wasn't clear about the instructions that I gave. I need to do better at that. Here's how I'm gonna go about that. 

Building Trust Through Accountability

[00:10:10] Paul: One of the reasons why that helps build trust is that helps other people feel seen, right?

[00:10:15] Paul: If I'm in a position of authority, it means that I am less likely to actually understand how other people do things, like what's going on in the org and things like that. If I'm able to say something that helps people really think that I get it, that I go, yeah, this happened and it makes sense that that happens because of this.

[00:10:34] Paul: And like, here's how that process breaks down. People go, oh, he understands. Like that is a huge thing that builds trust that my structural authority is actually working against, like I'm actually counter have a, a wind that's sort of blowing against that, at that point. 

[00:10:49] Karen: Yeah. And I think the alternative is for me to say, I did everything right. You're hurting, but I did everything right and I'm gonna keep doing it the way that I was. And any rational person will respond to that and say, gee, if I keep engaging with you and being vulnerable with you and putting my eggs in your basket, I'm going to keep being hurt. Because what, you know, whatever you think you're doing that's right is gonna keep happening.

[00:11:14] Karen: And at least in this case, it didn't work for me. And so the flip side of that is by acknowledging as you say, what's happening for other people. What I did and even if it's something that I didn't know better, like I didn't have any way to know that it was gonna go badly. I still did the thing that then went badly.

[00:11:34] Karen: And if I can name, I did the thing. I don't know if I can, you know, like I don't know if I'm gonna know better than next time. I didn't this time. But I care and I get that. I made a decision or I did what I did on whatever basis I did, and it went badly like that happened. It may not even have been a mistake.

[00:11:53] Karen: Maybe. I mean, I don't think it works to fall on your sword for something that actually is in no way your fault. Like, I don't think being dishonest and saying, oh, for sure this is all my fault. Or even the sort of thing of, you know, one employee did illegal things and ran off with money or something that nobody, okay.

[00:12:14] Karen: So yeah, I probably should have supervised them better, but also that's probably not entirely my fault. So if I say it's a hundred percent my fault and you know, totally take all the responsibility for it and all that kind of thing, that's not credible either. Like there are things that really aren't.

[00:12:31] Karen: But when things have gone badly, almost always the leadership has done something that contributed to how they went badly. And if we're willing to say it and name it, we will support the relationships that will help the group recover from it. 

[00:12:47] Paul: And important point at something that you said in there about, you know, falling on your sword.

[00:12:51] Paul: One of the things that I found that's really useful is the ability to admit you'd made a mistake, to admit that things didn't go the way you wanted to, to take accountability, for various things in a way where you're not dragging yourself through the mud. A mentor of mine likes to say maintaining being an emotional peer to the other person that you're talking with.

[00:13:13] Paul: And so it's like, if I've done it, if you and I have had an interaction and a thing that's happened, I've asked you to do a thing, it's not gone well. And I delegated something to you. I've asked you to do it, come back, it's gone sideways, this, that, and the other thing. One of the things we're saying is it's not useful for me to go, well, there's nothing that I could have done about it.

[00:13:30] Paul: Right? Or to blame you entirely, right? To say like, well, how dare you? You couldn't possibly have blah, blah, blah. That neither of those things is building my influence and my trust, you know, between the two of us. But it's also not useful for me to go, it's all my fault. Like, this is all on me.

[00:13:47] Paul: I am the worst boss ever. Like that, and the other, you know, to put myself sort of one down from you, that is also not useful. But I think that's the image that many people have of what admitting culpability or accountability or things like that looks like. And instead like to be able to say, you know, as the boss, the buck does stop with me.

[00:14:09] Paul: Right? Absolutely. Like, there are things that I could have done differently. There are things that were outside of my control. Like none of that necessarily matters. Here's what we're gonna do from here. And to be able to do that in a relatively even keeled way, in a way that, again, I'm not either putting you down, I'm not pulling myself down.

[00:14:28] Paul: While we're doing that, it's sort of both of us being able to have that emotional maturity, to have the conversation, that I think is the way in which it is useful for bosses to admit mistakes. 

[00:14:40] Karen: Yeah. 

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:14:41] Karen: So what we're talking about today is hierarchical situations where there is some amount of hierarchy in the structure, and there is a person or a group of people who have decision making authority, who are the leaders in some way.

[00:14:55] Karen: And those people inevitably make mistakes because they're people. Or they do things that are rational things, but that came out badly and that the bad outcome can be traced back to the thing that they did. And in all of those cases, we think there's a huge tendency for people to do the thing that was always modeled for them in their childhood, probably, and often in the corporate world, which is to say, not my fault, bad things happened.

[00:15:22] Karen: And we're going on or so and so that's not me is to blame and now we're going on, but without acknowledging this is how I contributed to that. This is the thing that I did do. This is the part of it that I had. Maybe, you know, the buck stops with me because I'm the leader and it was my job to supervise that or look after that or whatever.

[00:15:44] Karen: And what we're saying is that if we can name that, so if we can say, this is the piece that I had, this is the thing that I did, this is the responsibility that I hold and it went badly, or I was wrong, or I made a mistake, or even I should have known better, all that stuff that if we can say that it's pretty vulnerable.

[00:16:03] Karen: People aren't necessarily expecting it. It actually builds trust because it results in those people who may be hurting because of the mistake or whatever happened. Those people feel heard, they feel valued, and they have some reason to suspect that the hurt that they're feeling now is not just going to be repeated because while I did everything right and I'm gonna do it that way again, if instead they're hearing, I see that things didn't go well, I'm learning from that.

[00:16:30] Karen: I see what the impact was on you. I see that you were hurt by it. And this is how I'm gonna change things to do differently into the future, that that actually builds trust and builds influence. And so we're saying not just that there's some moral imperative. In fact, we aren't suggesting a moral imperative here at all, but we're saying very pragmatically, if you want to have more influence, more leadership, more even authority in your role.

[00:16:59] Karen: The thing to do isn't to deny all mistakes or all culpability, but to do the opposite and really claim the pieces that are yours and do the vulnerable thing of saying, this is on me and I see what it did, and this is what I see that it did, and this is what I'm gonna do about it. Either to clean up this mess or to avoid the next one or whatever.

[00:17:19] Karen: And if you can do all of that, you're actually building stronger relationships. And even better, you're modeling for the next generation of leaders that it's okay to name your mistakes. 

[00:17:29] Paul: Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time. I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:17:33] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.