Here's how to bounce back.

You made a big decision and things didn’t go as planned.

Time to get you out of this mess.

Step One: Own The Mistake

Before you can make things right, you must acknowledge—to yourself and your team—that your decision was wrong.

Admitting you made a mistake does not mean you are weak or incompetent. It means you’re a leader.

Leaders are accountable and take responsibility for every decision that they make—whether the outcome meets expectations or not. Great leaders take ownership on behalf of the entire team.

This is an opportunity to demonstrate to your team that, as their leader, you are in it with them regardless of the outcome. The road to practicing resiliency begins with trust and honesty.

Listen, I've had to own mistakes as much as anyone else, and it never gets easier. But, I have learned a few lessons in delivery:

• 1-on-1s kick company-wide meetings' asses
• Show your emotion (it shows you care)
• Open the floor for questions, no matter how hard they are

Step Two: Be Okay With Setting New Expectations

You can’t change what happened. Get over it.

Free your mind of all those second-guesses, wish-I-would-haves, and if-I-only’s. There’s a time and a place for deeper reflection (see Step Three below). But not now. Now is the time to get back on track.

To do that, you need to reassess your situation and determine a new, achievable goal.

Here’s what this might look like:

• You’re an engineer. You just released a new version of software only to realize there are tons of bugs. So what? There are always bugs. Fix them. Try to avoid rolling back to an earlier release—move forward. Prioritize the issues and start tackling the most important ones first. Get the right people on your team involved. Communicate the plan. Go.
• You’re an art director. You just pitched a wild concept for a brand launch campaign. It’s too wild. Your client hates it. So what? You never take these things personally—it’s always about the work. Besides, they hired you for your talent and ideas. Remind your client of your role and purpose. Then, realign on the goals of the project. You have a million creative ideas a day. You’ll have another solution in no time.
• You’re a new manager. You delegated the authority and responsibility of your boss’ pet project to one of your direct reports and they completely dropped the ball. So what? This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate why you’re in a leadership position in the first place. Be hard on the problem, not the person. It’s your opportunity to coach your team on how to recover from a failure.

A course correction is not admitting defeat—it’s called being resilient.

Step Three: Host a Retro

Once the dust settles on your mistake, conduct a retroactive examination of the project’s good, bad, and ugly parts (in the software world, we call this a retro). It’s basically a meeting that involves all stakeholders who worked on a given project.

A retro is incredibly important for three reasons.

First, it provides everyone involved with closure of the experience.

Second, it prepares you and your team to make better decisions in the future.

Third, it reinforces your team’s confidence in being resilient whenever situations require it.

Here’s the basic outline for a retro:

• What went well?
• What didn’t?
• What steps should we take to make sure the next project goes better?

Don’t skip this step. Having context is key to making future decisions.

Step Four(ever): Practice Resiliency

On the path to success, the world’s most accomplished people have also experienced major failures. In fact, many credit their achievements to their resilience in times of adversity. They didn’t see failure as an end point. They saw it as a catalyst for growth.

I’ll take that one step further. I believe that resilience is not only essential to accomplishing your goals, it’s a skill that can be strengthened with consistent, intentional practice. Just like a muscle.

You can practice resiliency in small ways to prepare your mind for the big ones. For example:

• Take a different route to work and see what you discover along the way.
• Go up to a stranger at a networking event and introduce yourself. Better yet, go up to 10.
• Drop a great, unexpected idea on your CEO’s desk and pitch why the company should invest in it.
• Go on a job interview even though you’re not currently looking. Practice putting yourself on the spot before you actually need a new job.  
• Role-play scenarios with your colleagues or family members. For example, you accidentally left your phone in an Uber. How do you get it back within the hour?

The more you practice making decisions and being resilient when dealing with the outcomes in your everyday life, the more confident you’ll be when faced with challenges that you must overcome.

Now get out there and f-up again.

You’ve got this.  

How do you practice resiliency and bounce back from unexpected outcomes? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below.