When you’ve (recently in my case) been objectively wrong (and publicly so), do you get the most out of the opportunity?
I was hanging out with my in-law’s over the weekend, and I said (with a lot of conviction) something at Saturday lunch I was confident was true. Upon reflection the next day, I realised I had learned the relevant “fact” so long ago that it was prior to me having usefully developed standards of evidence.
A quick check online revealed that I was objectively wrong, and I’d made others dumber for me having spoken. This gave me two choices: Quietly say nothing, or take full advantage.
The highest performing teams I’ve led have all felt free to fail, and free to fsck up. When they do bork it gloriously, they’ve also seen it modelled by leadership that it’s safe to publicly own the mistake as a simple way to improve the skills and knowledge of those around them.
The next day I was again at a family gig with the same in-laws (and nieces), and took the opportunity to say “So, I was wrong about that thing yesterday, here’s what some better sourced information has to say that I think is more likely true”, and it was a trivial but useful opportunity for my teenage nieces to see adults owning up to not always being right, and doing so by deferring to better sourced information.
This was a family example, but it’s the same in your teams. Unless they can see you (1) being wrong, (2) owning it, and (3) others growing from it, then you’re missing out on your team becoming stronger, faster.