Owning your Mistakes: Why It’s Hard but Essential for Connected Workplaces

In any team, things go wrong. We miss deadlines, drop the ball, or make decisions that don’t land well. What matters most isn’t perfection, it’s what happens next. Do people take responsibility and learn? Or do they deflect, go quiet, or look for someone else to blame?

Accountability – owning your mistakes – takes confidence. And in some workplaces, people don’t feel safe enough to do it. There’s still a lot of fear tied up in being seen to fail – especially when psychological safety is low, or if honesty isn’t the norm.

What accountability really means

Being accountable isn’t just about saying “my bad” when something goes wrong. It’s about showing up in ways that build trust with your team, even when things are uncomfortable. That includes:

• Taking responsibility when a mistake has been made
• Being someone your team can rely on to follow through
• Owning the ways your assumptions, habits or unconscious biases might affect how you treat others

People who take accountability help teams move forward faster, because they’re not spending energy covering tracks or dodging tough conversations.

In fact, accountability is one of the key ingredients of high-performing teams. In Google’s Project Aristotle, dependability was the second strongest factor affecting team performance, after psychological safety. Teams that could rely on each other to follow through, admit mistakes and stay honest were more productive, more creative, and better at solving problems together.

Why it’s hard — and how to make it easier

For many people, admitting fault feels risky. They might worry about being judged, letting the team down, or damaging their reputation. And if there’s no clear culture of learning from failure, it’s tempting to stay quiet and move on.

That’s where managers can make a difference. One simple, powerful idea is to create regular space for shared reflection, like a weekly “fail of the week” moment in team meetings. When people are encouraged to share what didn’t go to plan, and what they learned as a result,  it normalises honesty and turns mistakes into growth.

This doesn’t have to be big or formal. A manager might say: “Mine this week: I rushed through that client reply and missed a key point. Next time I’ll slow down before hitting send. What about you lot?”

When leaders go first, it sets the tone for everyone else.

Bottom line

Accountability builds trust, not just by fixing problems but by showing that people care enough to take ownership. When managers lead with honesty, and make space for learning over blame, teams feel safer, stronger, and more connected. Mistakes still happen but they become stepping stones, not stumbling blocks.

Photo by Francisco De Legarreta C. on Unsplash