The Art of Productive Failure

In this newsletter, I discuss the importance of reframing our relationship with mistakes and how it impacts individual and collective growth:

1. Understand the role that blame, shame, and guilt play in our reactive tendencies
2. Change the paradigm by asking, “What can I learn, and what can I do differently next time?”
3. Communicate it, accept it, learn from it, and move on

Leaders aren’t defined by their mistakes but by how they respond to them.

Early in my leadership journey, I viewed making mistakes as a weakness, and I’ve found that many new leaders tend to have the same fear of messing up.

Time and experience taught me the opposite:

Acknowledging our mistakes is a strength. Communicating, accepting, and learning from them so that we can do better next time is a superpower.

The Role of Blame, Shame, and Guilt

As I’ve said before, leadership development is human development.?

We must recognize our default reactive tendencies and create the conditions for ourselves and those around us to shift away from blame, shame, and guilt.

As Brené Brown explains:

“Guilt is a feeling often experienced when we act against our values. Shame is a deeply held belief about our unworthiness as a person.”

They resemble a familiar spiral and pattern: blame seeks explanations, shame questions our competence, and guilt wonders why we didn’t know better.

But there’s a different path to counter those ego-centric defaults. A path that builds forward momentum instead of keeping us stuck in cycles of self-doubt.

Leadership sets the tone for how this manifests in the collective.

The way leaders respond to mistakes has a direct impact on an organization’s culture and team behavior:

Impact on Culture

• When leaders react to mistakes with blame, shame, guilt, and punishment (direct or passive), it creates a fear-based culture where people become risk-averse and defensive
• Conversely, when leaders approach mistakes through a learning lens, it encourages a culture of trust, open dialogue, responsibility, and creativity

Impact on Team Behavior

In a punitive environment, the team tends to:

• Hide or attempt to cover up mistakes
• Avoid taking the initiative or making decisions
• Document extensively for protection
• Withhold information from leadership and each other
• Avoid taking responsibility for mishaps
• Produce subpar results when they prioritize self-interest

In a psychologically safe environment, teams are more likely to:

• Report issues immediately when they’re manageable
• Take calculated risks and make timely decisions
• Share lessons learned openly to benefit everyone
• Collaborate to solve problems
• Take ownership of mistakes and focus on solutions
• Produce quality results while maintaining relationships

The Power of Acceptance

When leaders openly address their missteps, they create the conditions for their team to follow suit.

This transparency benefits the collective and helps individuals see the value of developing self-awareness and emotional intelligence professionally.

It demonstrates that measured vulnerability is a strength.?

It creates an environment in which the default behavior is retroactively reviewing decisions, actions, and behaviors with the intent to improve.

But none of that happens without acceptance, where we often stumble.

Why? Because acceptance can feel like defeat.?

Our minds want to replay the mistake in a loop, annotating each moment with ‘should haves’ and ‘could haves.’ We confuse acceptance with complacency.

But here’s the truth: acceptance isn’t about not caring about what happened. It’s caring with the specific intention to create space for what happens next.

Without it, we remain stuck justifying, hiding, and ruminating.

Here’s how we can change the paradigm with one question:

What can I learn, and what can I do differently next time?

The CALM Framework

As I learned the role that blame, shame, and guilt play in our adverse reactions to mistakes, I sought to create a framework for myself to think differently.?

I wanted something easy to remember to short-circuit the innate but unproductive ego responses that often followed the realization that I messed up, which is how I came up with CALM:

C—Communicate

Acknowledge the mistake and discuss it honestly and transparently. Avoid explaining, justifying, or blaming. Hold yourself accountable.

Encourage dialogue and ask for feedback—ensure you fully understand the broader impact and any opportunities for improvement.

A—Accept

This is the most crucial step—learning from the situation doesn’t happen without it. Take responsibility and allow yourself some grace; everyone makes mistakes.

Reframe negative, self-deprecating thoughts by reminding yourself that these situations are the best way to learn through experience; expect them to happen.

Shame and guilt aren't healthy motivators. While they can be used this way, they will never lead to productive long-term outcomes or relationships. Instead, be curious.

L—Learn

Ask intentional questions. Identify key learnings from the mistake with self-review and feedback from others. What can be done differently in the future?

Adjust processes, behaviors, strategies, or habits relevant to the situation as needed. Keep the changes small and iterative, and avoid overcorrecting.

M—Move Forward

Choose to take steps forward instead of dwelling on the past—form a plan to identify and respond to the same situation, pattern, or trigger in the future.

These principles involve creating repeatable systems, maintaining transparency, and communicating with others for support and accountability.

While this concept is simple, implementing it isn’t easy. It requires practice and alignment with a defined value system.

We all make mistakes in our personal and professional roles, and I’ve found this especially true in learning to lead and teach my kids.

The goal isn’t to eliminate mistakes but to reframe how we view, internalize, and respond to them, encouraging those around us to do the same through action.

Communicate it, accept it, learn from it, and most importantly, allow some grace along the way and keep moving forward.

Change your relationship with mistakes, and you transform your capacity to lead.

“Take responsibility when you screw up. In work and life, you’ll be more respected and trusted by the people around you if you own up to your mistakes. It’s impossible to avoid them, but it is possible to acknowledge them, learn from them, and set an example that it’s okay to get things wrong sometimes.”?-Bob Iger, CEO of Disney

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