I can’t say I know anyone who actively enjoys dealing with negative situations or mistakes. But how you manage yourself in those situations can have a drastic effect on how others trust you.

I have been managing teams for almost 6 years and know full well how hard it can be to know how to react when something out of the ordinary happens.

Striking the right balance

It can feel hard at times to strike the right balance between blaming too much or too little. Blame too little and people will be sloppy but blame too much and you have a culture where mistakes are hidden and not learnt from.

Taking some lessons from my own experience and from Matthew Syed’s book “Black Box Thinking: The surprising Truth About Success”; here are some of my key tips in striking that balance.

Be consistent

It is essential to be consistent with people because inconsistency and letting your mood on the day affect how you deal with others can increase stress and make it hard for people to know “Who” they are getting on any given day… is it Dr.Jekyll or Mr.Hyde?

Spend time at the “Gemba”

Spending time with your team at their area of work so you can better understand the challenges they face day to day is essential to building trust and also can be a good opportunity to spot warning signs that a mistake is waiting to happen.

You can then take a more proactive approach and give your team more support / guidance / coaching to reduce the chances of a mistake happening in the first place.

Be aware of your own triggers

In the heat of the moment, of the disappointment or the frustration, it can be easy to assume that someone is guilty of a mistake, before gathering the true facts about the situation.

Being aware of your own personal triggers and finding ways to deal with them, is the best way to have a good outcome no matter the situation.

If you can delay a conversation until you have had time to centre yourself then make sure you do so.

Show emotion carefully

I asked my coach for advice on how he would recommend approaching a negative situation from an emotional standpoint and this is what he told me:

“When dealing with a negative situation, it is important to be unemotional, to gather and communicate the facts….but make sure to show emotion, happiness and gratitude when things go well”.

Putting this advice in to practice, forces you, as the leader to be in a neutral frame of mind when dealing with a negative situation and reduces the likelihood that a person will be unfairly blamed for a mistake.

It is important that those under your leadership trust that you will be fair when drawing the line between an honest mistake and justifiable blame.

Where do you draw the line?

Matthew Syed states that you will be in a much better position to strike a healthy balance as a manager, if you take the time to understand the facts of a situation by appraising data and various points of view.

The aim behind this thinking is that not only do you figure out the specifics of what happened but you also send the message to your team that if you make an honest mistake, you won’t be punished.

People are far more likely to trust you if they feel that they have been listened to and that the facts have been appraised fairly.

If there are successive mistakes made, it might be appropriate to performance manage someone as well as or instead of going down a formal disciplinary route. One of the best ways to manage under-performance is to use a Performance Improvement Plan.

Performance Improvement Plans

The Performance Improvement Plan (or PIP for short) can be a great way to deal with poor performance and maintain (or even enhance) trust at the same time.

The objective of a PIP is to bring a person from underperformance back to performing at the right level. It is critical that it is a partnership between the manager and the team member because both of you will have specific roles when it comes to improving performance.

If done correctly, you drastically improve the performance of the individual and have secondary improvements in performance from the rest of the team as well.

Your organisation will likely have a PIP process and a standard template, so make sure you are aware of it and understand how to use it.

I have been fortunate (or unfortunate depending on your viewpoint) to experience both extremes within organisations; one where blame is apportioned without much consideration given to the facts, and one where the facts are found and considered but blame isn’t apportioned when it is due.

Blame too little and people will be sloppy but blame too much and you have a culture where mistakes are hidden and not learnt from.

The above doesn’t mean that punishment is never justified,