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My car careened around the sharp curve of the campus driveway as I desperately tried to get back to my office. I realized I had accidentally emailed the wrong information to my grade-level parents. 🤦♀️
In my rush to get home, I forgot to double-check the attachment and sent out one that did not have the correct information. Totally a newbie mistake. Parents who avidly check their email had already started emailing me back questioning the information as I drove home.
I parked my car and ran into the school, frantically unlocking my office and flipping open the top of my laptop, so I could fix my mistake. I did, and looking back at this error, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but at the moment, I felt like my world was crumbling and I was doomed.
I resent the communication with an apology and the correct information. I then knew I would have to call my principal and do a mea culpa. I feared making this call because mistake-making is not something I embraced. Even though I knew that is the way we learn and improve and would tell this to individuals day in and day out, when I made a mistake, I felt like my world was on fire.
When we lower our defenses and allow for true reflection and growth, we will become stronger as a community and better serve our students.
What’s worse than making a mistake and feeling this way is having someone else, particularly a superior, use that mistake as an opportunity to instill fear in you. Last year, I wrote a post that highlighted 6 Steps to Fail Forward. I am personally always working on this framework and trying to provide myself grace when I make a mistake.
This week’s post is for our leaders out there. The ones who can either calm the nerves of someone who makes a mistake or use that mistake as an opportunity to manipulate and create a fear-based culture. By the end of this post, you’ll know why mistake-making is essentially for growth and come away with 5 actions to foster a culture where mistake-making is embraced and used for improvement.
Mistakes as Catalysts for Growth
Let’s face it: mistakes happen. Whether it’s a typo in an email, a misstep in a decision, or an awkward moment in a staff meeting (you know the one), nobody’s perfect. But what if I told you that mistakes aren’t just inevitable—they’re opportunities? As a leader, reframing mistakes as learning moments can create a culture of growth, resilience, and innovation.
The concept of learning from mistakes isn’t new. Albert Bandura’s (1977) Social Learning Theory emphasizes that we learn by observing, imitating, and adapting, often in response to feedback from our own missteps. In practice, this means mistakes are crucial for refining our skills and strategies.
Recent studies underscore this point. For example, research by Van Dyck et al. (2010) highlights that organizations fostering a “learning-from-failure” culture are more innovative and adaptable. When leaders model vulnerability—acknowledging their own mistakes and reflecting openly—they create psychological safety. Employees in such environments feel empowered to take risks, share ideas, and, yes, make mistakes without fear of judgment.
In schools, mistakes aren’t just for students. Educators, too, grow when they reflect on challenges and recalibrate. Let’s say a teacher implements a classroom strategy that doesn’t quite land (we’ve all been there!). A strong leader sees this not as a failure, but as a chance to ask: What worked? What didn’t? How can we adjust?
When we lower our defenses and allow for true reflection and growth, we will become stronger as a community and better serve our students.
Carol Dweck’s (2006) Growth Mindset Theory offers a perfect lens. When teachers—and their leaders—approach mistakes with curiosity rather than criticism, they model a growth mindset for students. It’s a ripple effect: confident educators create confident learners.
If our students think we are perfect and never make mistakes, then what kind of culture are we creating? Similarly, if our staff never hears about the leader's failures, then how will this impact their perception of themselves and the process of failure and growth?
5 Ways Leaders Can Build a Mistake-Friendly Culture
So, how can you, as a leader, use mistakes to foster learning and growth? Here’s the secret sauce:
1. Model the Behavior You Want to See
This is a tough one. Especially for my perfectionists out there, but admit your own mistakes openly. A simple, “Oops, that’s on me!” can go a long way in normalizing error and encouraging reflection.
With this said, when you make a mistake, willingly share what you learned and how you will do better next time.
2. Create Psychological Safety
Encourage your team to experiment without fear of blame. Research from Edmondson (1999) shows that psychological safety leads to better team learning and collaboration.
How do you build psychological safety? Relationships that lead to trust. Connect with people so that they learn who you are and what you believe about mistake-making.
3. Normalize Reflection
After a misstep, ask reflective questions like: What can we learn from this? How can we avoid it next time? Frame discussions around growth, not failure. Do not use language that is accusatory or puts others on the defensive. If you do, people will revert to the fight or flight part of their brain and will not be at their best to learn and grow.
4. Celebrate the Learning, Not Just the Success
Did a teacher try a new classroom technique that didn’t pan out? Celebrate their willingness to innovate and discuss what they learned. I firmly believe that rather than highlighting the wins all the time, we need to celebrate the process of learning, the bumps in the road that lead us to growth and innovation.
If our students think we are perfect and never make mistakes, then what kind of culture are we creating? Similarly, if our staff never hears about the leader's failures, then how will this impact their perception of themselves and the process of failure and growth?
5. Encourage Peer Support
Mistakes often feel less isolating when shared. Foster a collaborative culture where staff can brainstorm solutions together. This can readily happen within grade-level or content-area teams. But, if you really want to take it to the next level, think about how you can systemically highlight failures as opportunities for growth and collaboration so that the collective is working together not only to offer support but also to encourage reflection and learning.
One Last Thought
I have had great leaders who were understanding when I made a mistake and tried to get me to reflect on what happened. And I’ve had leaders who were not so forgiving and tried to instill fear in me as a way to manipulate me.
A few weeks ago, Adam Grant posted on LinkedIn that “broadcasting” accomplishments is not a clear signal of success but a delineator of insecurity. He noted that insecure individuals will brag about their wins so they garner attention. Instead of bragging about successes, he noted that truly confident and secure people will discuss their failures, their “peaks and valleys” to inspire others.
His comment is so true. Rather than always celebrating the outcome and the win, as leaders we should celebrate the process of learning (which involves mistake-making). To do this, we need to respond in a way that normalizes mistake-making as a pathway to learning.
To quote Alfred from Batman, “Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”
As leaders, it’s easy to fall into the trap of perfectionism, expecting ourselves and others to always get it right. But in reality, mistakes are where the magic happens. By embracing error as a pathway to learning, you’re not just improving outcomes—you’re creating a community where growth and innovation thrive. And let’s be honest: doesn’t that sound way better than stressing over perfection?
References
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
Van Dyck, C., Frese, M., Baer, M., & Sonnentag, S. (2010). Organizational error management culture and its impact on performance: A two-study replication. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(6), 1228–1240.
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