The Hidden Dilemma – Most Managers Hide Their Mistakes

Irrational, but somehow understandable, are the reasons why managers try to keep quiet about their mistakes. A learning culture can't develop under such conditions. This comes at a high price because the consequences can be severe or even existential. Leadership training remains ineffective and the development of managers stagnates. Good arguments to cut the budget for further training.

Worse than this, however, is the fact that innovation is not possible, and thus every organization will in due time find itself in a critical situation. If aspects such as psychological safety and cognitive barriers are considered, the dilemma can be resolved.

This article explores the background of the dilemma, looks at it from a scientific perspective and shows how the challenges can be solved. In addition, the findings are used to explain how to learn from mistakes, because this is harder than one may think. Building on this foundation, a true learning culture can be developed.

“Mistake or failure do not deserve to be addressed with recrimination or pity. They must be honored for the insight they provide. Both are the grist for learning. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. The problem is: People have been taught never to do anything wrong, and then they become so hesitant, so fearful, so frightened of doing wrong, that they become stuck. The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to mistakes or failures.”

Unveiling the consequences of concealed mistakes on personal and organizational levels

Introduction

Leaders are often praised for their ability to inspire, coach and lead teams to success. But behind the surface of competence and influence a worrying fact has emerged: The clear majority of 68% of managers prefer to hide their mistakes. This is due to fear of career disadvantages, and 53% of managers do so out of fear of losing their jobs. These are the findings of EY's Error Culture Report/Fehlerkultur-Report 2023.

This reality is nothing new! Various studies have already highlighted this problem, such as the study "How error prevention and organizational silence influences managers' self-perception". Furthermore, the study "The role of error management culture for firm and individual innovativeness" by the University of Leuphana, also proves that the ability for innovation strongly depends on the error culture. The study, "You think failure is hard? So is learning from it!" by the University of Chicago, shows as well why learning from errors often fails due to the Ego, as people tend to ignore failures and pay no attention to them to protect their Ego.

This finding, as surprising and serious as it may be, has the potential to have profound changes on leadership development and, consequently, on team dynamics, organizational culture, and as a result, on the performance of the organization.

The Paradox of Transparency - Between Trust and Vulnerability

At its core, leadership thrives from transparency and thus also from vulnerability. More and more organizations want to act in an open and transparent manner and are investing in staff development on topics such as integrity, ethics and sustainability.

Moreover, many organizations aim to promote an error or rather learning culture because learning without errors is in practice impossible.

The willingness to admit mistakes and learn from them not only fosters a culture of accountability, it also sets a strong role model for all employees. When managers keep quiet about their mistakes, they create a paradox because the very transparency that can strengthen leadership qualities and relationships becomes a potential threat to career advancement, because transparency means vulnerability too.

Erosion of Trust

Trust is the cornerstone of effective leadership and many mistakes are discovered eventually. When managers conceal their mistakes, they send a detrimental message to their teams. The act of hiding mistakes erodes the trust that team members place in their leaders.

Team members may start questioning the leader's integrity and decision-making abilities, leading to a breakdown in communication and cooperation. As a result, an environment of suspicion replaces the culture of trust that is crucial for any successful team.

This is the latest point at which the danger develops that the team members ask themselves how they deal with their own mistakes and consider whether they might also experience career disadvantages as a result, or even be the top candidates to lose their jobs in the event of a reorganization. The vicious circle starts to run at full speed and a learning culture is worth as much as the paper it is written on.

Stifling Innovation

Mistakes, when addressed openly, can serve as invaluable learning opportunities. They encourage innovation by pushing teams to analyze failures, identify root causes and develop creative solutions. However, in an atmosphere where managers conceal their errors, the potential for innovation is stifled.

Team members are less likely to bring forward ideas or raise concerns if they fear negative consequences.

Curiosity and the courage and will to try out new things are sought in vain here.

This stifling effect can impair an organization's ability to change and prevent it from evolving and remaining competitive in a constantly changing business environment (VUCA) and responding to situations in an agile manner.

Missed Growth Opportunities

Leadership training programs often focus on self-awareness, emotional intelligence, effective communication, fostering strengths, resolving conflict or initiating and implementing change. Concealing mistakes negates the principles taught in these programs. By avoiding acknowledgment of errors, managers miss out on the personal growth and development that can come from confronting challenges and learning from setbacks.

Concealing mistakes out of fear of career disadvantages or of losing one's job almost certainly leads to an attempt to avoid making mistakes. This goes hand in hand with risk aversion. One avoids risks because dealing with risks involves the probability of doing something wrong. Not taking risks also means not making potential mistakes and hence not having to face the fear at all. An organization that does not dare to do new things and thus accepts risks "stands at the edge of the cliff and is tomorrow one step ahead". It is in the personal and organizational interest to take calculated risks in order not to miss out and remain competitive because "standing still means going backwards".

Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I will show you someone who has never achieved much. (Joan Collins)

Moreover, leadership trainings lose their effectiveness when the skills acquired are not applied authentically in real-world scenarios. New skills to be learned must be applied practically in controlled real-life scenarios to transform these skills into competencies. Controlled means ensuring that the skills to be learned are practiced properly. Doing so means repeated application, objective evaluation of the action and unbiased feedback after each application.

However, applying new skills is always a risk because one never knows how it will turn out and before making a mistake, one rather prefers not to do anything new. This means that one of the first steps to ensure the effectiveness of leadership training is to create an environment where leaders can test new behaviors without risk. Simulation provides this safe environment. It is important that the simulations are close to real life, that skills are assessed and that objective feedback is provided. Simulations should be developed based on scientific results to ensure the credibility. In addition, simulations must not only cover the leadership of employees. Leaders also always lead a business or a part of it. This means that business aspects such as profitability or sustainability must also be covered and assessed.

Impact on Organizational Culture

The actions of leaders set the tone for an organization's culture. When leaders hide their mistakes, it sends a message that accountability and transparency are not valued. This can permeate through the entire organizational structure, affecting how employees approach their own responsibilities. An organization that lacks a culture of open communication and learning from mistakes is bound to face stagnant growth and struggle to attract and retain top talents, experts and leaders.

Learning from Mistakes is a Challenge

It is essential that leaders can practice in a psychologically safe environment and experience immediately their development, because learning from mistakes is not an easy at all. The challenge people face in the attempt to learn from their mistakes is that they are less able to directly process information from mistakes. On the other hand, information from successes is easier to extract. To learn from successes, one has to remember what one did right and repeat it, which is easier.

Learning from mistakes is cognitively difficult because people tend to overlook unexpected or contradictory information. None expects that s/he will fail. A failure or mistakes that is contrary to expectations, may be ignored. Information, that is contrary to expectations, is given less attention. A positive learning effect is missing.

For a mistake to be informative, people must determine what a failed action reveals versus the correct action. Learning through elimination requires more mental effort. As people make cognitive errors, they have a harder time recognizing the information in mistakes than in success.

When people search for information, confirming information is better perceived and remembered, because it is weighted more strongly and receives more attention than contradictory information. This has been stated in various studies, e.g., Donsbach 1991. In addition, this means that people forget their mistakes or failures and all the details about them faster than they forget their successes and what they did right. The basis for learning from mistakes becomes weaker and weaker.

The same emotional and cognitive barriers that inhibit learning also inhibit sharing. Emotionally, people feel threatened by mistakes or failures. This leads them to isolate themselves from experiences of mistakes or failures and not share them with others. By not sharing, they can show their best side to others.

The implications of this situation/behavior are even more serious because negative information about mistakes or failures of OTHERS leads to learning. People respond more strongly to negative events or information (e.g., headlines in the media) than to positive (Dog saves woman's life) ones, in ways that stimulate learning, unless the event directly affects them. For example, compared to positive stimuli, negative stimuli (Shark attacks child) receive more attention and deepen information processing. It follows that when people share information about mistakes or failures in their social groups, others would likely look at, process, remember and learn from that information-as much or more than they learn from successes. The basis of this success, however, is sharing, which is a big challenge.

There are at least three different ways that learning from mistakes can occur while considering cognitive learning:

1. reducing the mental effort required to learn

2. increasing the availability of cognitive resources

3. changing the culture of failing

Formats to Learn from Mistakes

Based on the cognitive learning experience, scientifically reviewed formats are presented below, which create a distance to one's own ego, (study in the introduction) and incorporate one's own competencies, skills, knowledge as well as engagement:

"Mistakes of others" is a format in which one does not explain about one's own mistakes, which removes the psychological inhibition barrier from the beginning. The mistakes of others are discussed. These are provided neutrally and anonymously. The mistakes are analyzed together and solutions are worked out.

"Advice from people who failed" is a format in which people advise others who are/were in a similar situation, except that the advisor(s) failed the challenge. They explain what they did, why they failed and what they would do differently. The others listen, ask questions and think about how they can best benefit from what they hear. The advisors themselves benefit from this format, as they reflect on their thoughts and actions with a certain distance and in a different positive role, that of the advisor, and usually see them in a new/different way.

"The rise of the Phoenix" or "failing successfully" is a modified form of the more familiar "F*ck-Up" events. The focus is on what was learned and how to use the entire experience for future activities. It is also the transition from a failing culture to a learning culture.

Once a basis of trust has been created, further measures can be implemented, such as "F*ck-up" events, as well as aspects of a feedback culture or workshops to work out conventions in collaboration, etc.

Conclusion

The results show that a significant proportion of managers conceal their mistakes out of fear of career disadvantages and job loss. This highlights a critical challenge in leadership development. Concealing mistakes may provide short-term relief, but the long-term consequences for leadership credibility and performance and their impact on team dynamics and organizational culture are profound. Leadership development must specifically address this serious problem and emphasize the importance of vulnerability, accountability, and open communication.

If managers cannot change their attitude, primarily towards their own mistakes and secondarily towards those of others, the economic consequences in a world driven by knowledge and innovation are serious. In order for leaders, in their role as role models, to change their attitude, they need a psychologically safe environment in which they can test behavior and learn from mistakes without being sanctioned and without having to communicate the mistakes. The cognitive learning process is supported by the repetitive playing and learning in the simulation and the continuous experience of how the leaders grow and improve as a result. Leaders can act more as role models and ambassadors of a learning culture after such positive learning experiences, e.g., by communicating their insights and what led them to this insight.