adminShelter Chieza Change Management
No one is perfect; we all are prone to making mistakes once in a while. Even managers also make mistakes. The issue about mistakes is that the longer you keep them to yourself, the longer it takes to fix them. Maybe you have under-quoted a customer and they have accepted your quotation, how do you rectify that costly blunder? Would you rather just bite the bullet and let it out or keep quiet in the hope no one notices.
I have personally discovered that honesty is the best policy, the moment you find yourself trying to cover up a professional mistake you are in for a massive fall.
You may have forgotten to do something routine, don’t cover it up, be honest and explain the circumstances as they happened.
Don’t be afraid of chronicling the events and motives behind the mistake; they may help to redeem you.
If you are a manager that has made a mistake, don’t just admit to making the mistake without proffering a solution.
Have a few counter solutions to minimise the epic failure you have just made.
Remember the hammer in most cases will come down on you, but you now want to work on minimising the impact.
Remember to err is human, anyone can make mistakes. Blunders have been chronicled in many professional settings but a person’s strength and character usually emerges when they are under this type of pressure.
Maybe you have forgotten to add the most important ingredient to the product and you only realise it when the whole manufacturing process is complete, or you have presented the wrong figures to board members, a mistake is still a mistake.
Facing your mistakes is not easy at all; it is hard but do yourselves a favour and forgive yourself first.
Do not be too hard on yourself, this is the time that you need yourself more than anyone else, if you keep blaming yourself, chances are that your will never find yourself.
These blunders must be looked at with a different eye as valuable life lessons, focusing your mind on them magnifies the problem.
It is tempting not to carry out a post- mortem of your mistake.
This introspection will help you decipher if you could have avoided the problem by being more disciplined, putting tighter measures and controls, having better judgment, or making wider consultations.
Remember the people that have recorded major successes have also made mistakes and have learnt from them.
I have seen new managers struggling with performance management issues; if you fail to tackles performance issues with your team early, it will backfire in the near future.
Leaders must be big thinkers, do not limit yourself to low mindedness, let your dreams and plans go sky high, it makes you expand your capacity to handle bigger things.
Some managers make the mistake of being reactive in their decision-making.
A lack of planning is the greatest pitfall a manager will have to face and deal with.
Solving a blunder may take much more time if there are more voices and critics than helpers to your situation.
In fact, some of the voices may even blow the situation out of control if you let them. Have people that support you around you during this crisis moment.
Great leaders own problems, this includes even the problems they did not directly cause. If you are the leader, know and remember that you are responsible.
It may seem difficult, because often you may not have directly caused the problem. Often times you are on the receiving end if you may not have been in the room, at the meeting or even at the event. It is harsh but you are answerable when things go wrong.
If it’s a total team failure review the mistakes. Make sure you don’t degrade team members by pointing fingers.
If the team failed, the team must decide how to work better in the future. If it’s a management failure get the various management levels together first and discuss it.
Own the mistake as managers, and figure out how you can avoid this in the future.
There is no right or wrong formula when dealing with mistakes; what’s important is not the number of times a man falls but how he gets up.
Till next week, may God richly bless you!
◆ Shelter Chieza is a Management Consultant. She holds over a decade of management experience .She can be contacted at [email protected]
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