'I Effed That Up': 6 Strategies From Successful Business Leaders on Dealing With Failure Failure is part of leadership, so what do you do when your decisions end badly?
By Entrepreneur Staff Edited by Frances Dodds
This story appears in the September 2021 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
1. Don't spin mistakes.
"Everyone on our team will tell you they've heard me say, "I effed that up' many times. I am my harshest critic, and I certainly don't try to spin my mistakes as anything other than "my bad.' Recently, I sent our warehouse incomplete paperwork. When a distributor picked up a PO, it ended up costing us money. If I didn't own up to the mistake, my team wouldn't trust me in the future." — Luke Christianson, cofounder, Marco Sweets & Spices
2. Brace yourself for tough feedback.
"The first and most vital step is to take ownership of what went wrong — and communicate that to the people who felt the ripple effect. But the next step is to brace yourself for when they agree that you screwed up. If I don't brace myself, I can get into a cycle where I may initially own up but then harden myself or become defensive when I receive their feedback." — Alex Iwanchuk, cofounder, Feals
Related: 6 Ways to Protect Your Business From the Next Disaster
3. Step back and listen.
"Admit the mistake, explain what happened, correct it. An example of this was early at Humu, when I realized that I didn't focus on winning the business of midmarket companies early enough. That was a mistake because there was a greater need for what we were building with smaller businesses. Once I realized my mistake, I was vocal to the rest of the company about it. Part of the learning was realizing that I needed to listen more and give more people channels to shape how we build our product and company." — Laszlo Bock, CEO and cofounder, Humu
4. Give credit where it's due.
"Failure is a part of achieving anything, and as a leader, the best thing you can do is own up to your mistakes. At our last board meeting, I went against an employee's recommendation and made what I thought was a "safe' decision. But ultimately, my decision led to sharing misleading information with the board. At our internal meeting the following week, I publicly apologized and recognized the employee who had advised against that decision." — Colleen Cutcliffe, cofounder and CEO, Pendulum Therapeutics
Related: 6 Essential Leadership Skills That Drive Success
5. Explain your process.
"I make risky bets a lot. Sometimes they pay off; sometimes they don't. When they don't — for example, making a big investment in a marketing channel that ends up not paying off, or even making a high-level hire that doesn't work out — I have gotten the team together and explained why I thought it was a good idea and why I now think I was wrong." — Melanie Travis, founder and CEO, Andie
6. Get vulnerable.
"Years ago, my approach to handling hot topics was to avoid talking about what didn't work and instead focus on what was working well. But one time, something happened that I didn't expect. Someone brought up a small failure, so we discussed it openly. That conversation sparked someone else to bring up another area for improvement, and then another. I worried the discussion would tear teams apart. But the opposite happened. Once we became comfortable talking about our failures, we felt safer trying new things that could have a huge impact." — Edward "Eddie" Kim, cofounder and CTO, Gusto
