Many people understand that admitting fallibility and shortcomings can build trust. Fewer are taught how to admit mistakes without undermining performance expectations. As a result, fallibility is often avoided—or expressed in vague, performative ways that don’t lead to change.

Done well, expressing fallibility is not about vulnerability for its own sake. It is a disciplined practice that improves accountability by reminding all that  mistakes can be an opportunity to practice growth mindset.

Many leaders worry that creating a work environment where people can take risks and ask questions without fear, also known as psychological safety, means avoiding hard accountability conversations. In reality, psychological safety and accountability are complementary; you need both for high performance.

So, let’s clarify how practicing fallibility can improve psychological safety and accountability, improving and strengthening teams.

Why mistakes stay hidden

Mistakes feel personal. Admitting an error can trigger fears of blame, embarrassment, or reputational damage. Leaders and managers play a decisive role here. When they avoid naming their own oversights, others learn that missteps are liabilities to be managed privately. When mistakes are presented clearly and constructively, leaders signal that learning is expected, not punished.

A common misconception is that acknowledging errors means relaxing expectations. In reality, the opposite is true. When leaders pair accountability with learning via course correction, be it their own or someone else’s, they raise the bar for future performance by creating a psychologically safe environment that can fuel development and innovation.

Productive fallibility has three parts:

1. Clear ownership of what went wrong
2. Explicit learning drawn from the mistake
3. Forward-looking action to prevent repetition

Without all three, admitting mistakes can risk becoming either defensive or performative, which prevents the purpose of admitting fallibility in the first place: encouraging transparency and psychological safety while using missteps as learning experiences.

Psychological safety and accountability work together

Instead of being opponents, psychological safety and accountability are allies in creating high-performing teams. People feel more confident taking ownership when teams have a high level of psychological safety because they know they will not be punished for honest slip-ups or smart risk-taking.

When people set the example and hold themselves accountable, they strengthen psychological safety and improve performance because they raise concerns, name mistakes, ask for feedback, and ask for help earlier. This is also why clear expectations are not optional. If people don’t know what is expected of them, it is very hard to practice true accountability, a necessity for psychological safety to exist.

So, the question becomes: what does fallibility look like in practice when you need to address a real gap?

What effective fallibility sounds like

Productive admissions are specific and work-focused. They avoid over-explaining or self-justifying, and they immediately reconnect to the task at hand.

For example:

• “I pushed for speed over accuracy, and that created extra work. That was my call. What decision check can we add next time?”
• “I wasn’t clear about priorities, and it caused confusion. That’s on me. Here’s the correction. Where else are expectations still unclear?”

These statements do three things at once: they reduce fear, protect accountability, and invite better thinking from others.

When leaders model fallibility consistently, people learn that:

• Mistakes are discussable, not dangerous
• Speaking up early is preferable to fixing things later
• Accountability includes learning, not just outcomes

The real value of fallibility is not the admission; it’s what follows. Mistakes can be used to spell out who the decision-makers are and improve communication norms. They can also be utilized to add lightweight process checks as well as make clear what the priorities are before pressure mounts. Over time, this reduces repeat errors and increases shared ownership of quality.

This shifts conversations from blame to improvement—without avoiding tough feedback or consequences.

Say this, not that

The way leaders name their own mistakes determines whether fallibility drives learning or quietly erodes standards. Below are some examples of how to reframe questions or directions to admit fallibility in a constructive manner.

• Not: “This keeps happening. What is going on?”
  Say: “I missed a pattern here, and that led to X impact. I want to reset how we’re tracking this going forward.”

• Not: “You dropped the ball.”
  Say: “I didn’t set us up clearly, and that contributed to the miss. Here’s what I’ll do differently next time.”

• Not: “You need to be more strategic.”
  Say: “I could have been clearer about what ‘strategic’ meant in this context. Going forward, I’ll ask for risks, options, and a recommendation.”

• Not: “This is unacceptable.”
  Say: “I approved this without catching the gap against our standard. Let’s review the expectation and the plan together.”

These small shifts help keep accountability clear while reducing defensiveness.

The performance advantage

Teams that recognize and address mistakes early adapt faster and make fewer avoidable errors. This isn’t because they’re nicer; it’s because they’re on the same page and know what needs to be fixed. Leader fallibility creates the conditions where problems are made visible when there is still time to act.

It’s not about comfort. It is about creating enough psychological safety to maintain high standards in complex, uncertain work. Leaders don’t need to share everything. They need to share the right things, in the right way, at the right moment—so others feel safe enough to do the same.

When was a time that you shared a mistake or error? What impact did it have on your organization?

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