Was it really my fault?

I made a huge mistake this past weekend and found myself scrambling to make amends.

But before making amends, I did what most of us do…tried to shift blame elsewhere. Isn’t it interesting how we expect those around us to immediately take full ownership of their missteps, yet we’re often slow to take the same kind of ownership?

The best leaders I’ve worked with are quick to admit mistakes and humble enough to apologize. When they do this, their team members follow suit, and gradually they create a team culture where people own their shortcomings and others rally around them to fill the gaps and champion growth.

Ready to create that kind of team culture? Watch the video to learn from my recent misstep.

• Read the video transcript

  Well, I made a huge mistake this last weekend.

  I'm currently the assistant coach for my daughter's basketball team, and I missed our very first game. I missed it. I was at her indoor soccer game when I received a text from the head coach to the entire team saying, “Hey, you know, our game's about to start and we're missing about half the team.”

  You see, what had happened was weeks ago, the game schedule came out, and at that time, I loaded all of the games in my calendar thinking I was just so on top of it. But since then, the game schedule changed and I didn't realize it, even though the head coach had texted the team last week reminding us of the game time, I kind of glossed over those details thinking, ““h, I've already got it in my calendar.”

  So when I received her text, the stress and the panic just set in. I felt so badly, right? I'm supposed to be there helping coach the game.

  And then, what do you think I did? I did what most of us do when we've let people down or when we've failed. I looked for something to blame, right? But at the end of the day, it was really just my fault.

  And so as soon as Harper's indoor soccer game ended, we rushed over to the gym. The game had just ended. I knew we wouldn't make it for any of the basketball game, but I got there in time to apologize to most of the families and to the head coach in person. That's all that I could do at that point was just own my mistake and apologize, and thankfully I was met with huge amounts of grace and patience.

  What is the thing at work that you've been trying to hide, right? Maybe a mistake you've made, maybe something about your style that you know is frustrating to others, and rather than shining a light on it and owning it, we try to hide it or we try to push the blame on something else.

  When I do 360 reviews with leaders, one of the most powerful steps of the process is for them to go back to the people who participate in the 360 and actually acknowledge to them that they heard the feedback and that they are working on X, Y, and Z. I heard you, thank you for participating in this 360. Moving forward I'm going to work on [fill in the blank]. It takes such humility and vulnerability to do this, but it ends up being one of the most freeing steps in the process.

  To actually own and acknowledge -- shine the spotlight on the thing that you need to grow in -- it's freeing both for you and for the people around you, and it builds huge amounts of trust and team camaraderie.

  So what is the thing that you need to own at work? The thing you've been trying to blame on something else, or the thing that you've just been trying to hide, hoping nobody sees it like you do? Just go humbly, acknowledge it and ask people to rally around you, to forgive you maybe, and to help you grow in this area. I promise it will be freeing both for you and for the people who have been waiting for you to acknowledge it.