What To Do When Someone Calls Out Your Mistake

Making a mistake is hard. It’s even harder when someone publicly points it out. Perhaps you misremembered a fact, reordered a timeline, or defined a term incorrectly, and someone stops you and brings attention to it. When someone calls out a mistake you made, I believe the best response—is to thank them. 

However, this has to be more than a quick, yet polite, brush-off in order to move on to your next point. Your response has to be genuine. If someone corrected a potentially foundational miscommunication, thank them for helping clarify your message. By pausing, thanking the person, and acknowledging the misstep, you show your colleagues a few things:

1. You can handle mistakes with ease

A great way to build trust on a team is by handling missteps graciously. For projects to succeed, we rely on being able to work well with one another, and part of that comes from feeling safe enough to step in when a mistake is made.

2. You are open to collaboration

Great teams work because they can share ideas. If one person can’t acknowledge another person’s help, then it’s not really a team atmosphere.

3. You are comfortable acknowledging issues
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Many issues in organizations are preventable, but sometimes people aren’t able to acknowledge when they mess up. This creates mistrust in the team, the project, and organization. It’s much better when you work with people who can admit mishaps to help avoid issues in the future.

When someone steps in to say you misspoke, they aren’t trying to point out how you failed, they are trying to help you succeed. Especially if it’s a foundational oversight, it’s important that someone corrected you early on. Real leaders are able to graciously acknowledge their mistakes. It helps build trust within the team and in your leadership capabilities.

​Author: Bri McWhorter
​© Activate to Captivate, LLC