Good Leaders Explain How Failure Will Be Judged Before It Happens

Failure is inevitable, and the lessons learned from it can be invaluable. But that doesn’t mean good leaders are failure-tolerant.

While learning from failure is essential, accountable cultures don’t celebrate or reward it. Instead, leaders judge failure by why it happened, not just by how it turned out.

For good leaders, some failures are more acceptable than others.

In strong organizations and cultures, taking calculated risks is encouraged and expected. Progress and innovation stall without team members willing to take such risks.

But risk-taking doesn’t always turn out as expected. When things go wrong, good leaders explore the reasons why. They know failure is a part of growth, and they want the lessons to encourage success next time.

Leaders also know some risks are poorly thought through. When that happens, people need to be held accountable to a sound process.

But when the standard only shows up after the fact, it discourages risk-taking and creates fear about making tough decisions. So, good leaders flip the order. They explain how failure will be judged before it happens.

Most leaders already carry a mental checklist for what counts as an unacceptable failure. Making that checklist explicit helps people make better decisions up front, and it explains why a poorly reasoned risk warrants a hard conversation afterward.

While the specifics vary by leader and situation, a common framework exists. For most leaders, failure is acceptable as long as the team member has cleared four bars:

1. The decision had a sound rationale. The team member could articulate a specific and plausible explanation for why this decision was sound and why the potential outcome justified the risk.

2. They committed the right resources. The team member backed that rationale with the time, money, and people it actually required.

3. The decision was actively monitored. The team member kept checking whether the underlying theory held and the outcome remained achievable.

4. They adjusted when it stopped working. The moment the desired outcome stopped being plausible, the team member changed course or adjusted their approach.

The best leaders insist that team members meet all four criteria.

When someone clears each bar and still fails, the leader’s job is to shield them from armchair criticism and Monday-morning quarterbacking. After the failure, both leader and team member can sit down together and rationally mine the failure for the lesson it can teach.

But if they drop the ball on any of the essential steps, a reckoning is due, even if the outcome happens to work out.

Failure that is unacceptable comes with the price of direct feedback about the obligations of leadership and a caution about future risk-taking without upholding the criteria.

The criteria for acceptable failure need to be spelled out before anyone in the room has actually failed at anything. That means covering this ground with new hires, new managers, and new project leaders. It also means reminding experienced team members about the criteria, which protects against poor choices from lazy thinking.

What undermines risk-taking in many organizations is walking into a minefield of criticism without knowing where the mines are.

Most judgments about failure happen after the fact, when the conversation is already contaminated by how bad the outcome looks. Learning in advance exactly how they will be judged if things go wrong takes the pressure off.

Team members who know what constitutes unacceptable failure are given the freedom to take bold, calculated risks without fear of unfair blame.

Remember, good leaders don’t wait until something goes wrong to decide how they will judge it. They decide in advance and tell everyone.