Some leadership moments don’t come with a playbook.
A team member makes a serious mistake. Someone’s confidence takes a hit. And you’re expected to lead with certainty when you don’t feel certain yourself.
In the final part of our series, Ash Wright and I tackle the conversations most leaders find hardest — the ones that happen after things go wrong. How you show up in these moments doesn’t just resolve the immediate situation. It shapes the people around you long after the pressure lifts.
These are the moments that define a leader.
A team member makes a serious mistake. What do you do in the first conversation with them?
Ash: That first conversation is not the time for blame or the time to identify and execute any lessons to be learned. I make it clear in that meeting that our immediate priority is working together to solve the issue at hand.
My priority is to ensure the person feels supported and safe enough to continue communicating openly and honestly. I start by letting them know we’re in this together and focus entirely on what needs to be done right now to resolve the issue.
For me, it’s about stabilising the situation first and a fundamental part of this is ensuring the staff member feels safe and supported. The deep dive into what went wrong can be saved for a secondary stage, once the pressure is off.
Liza: The first conversation isn’t about blame. It’s about assessment and support. I start by understanding the impact. What has happened, what needs to be fixed, and who needs to be informed.
That clarity comes first — because until you know the full picture, you can’t determine the right next steps.
But equally important is checking in on the person sitting in front of you. How are they feeling? Are they okay? A serious mistake can shake someone’s confidence and create fear about what comes next.
That first conversation needs to make it clear — we’re solving this together. Once the immediate issue is stabilised and the pressure is off, then you go back to the root cause. What went wrong, why, and what do we put in place so it doesn’t happen again.
The goal of that first conversation is simple. Fix the problem. Support the person.
How do you rebuild someone's confidence after a serious mistake?
Ash: Rebuilding confidence in the first instance relies on separating the mistake from the team member’s identity. A single mistake does not define a person and this is the moment they need to hear that from their leader. Even if you do nothing else, making this clear is critical.
After a serious mistake, most people already know where they went wrong and often they will be their own toughest critic. If your aim is to rebuild their confidence, one of the worst things you can do as a leader is revisit and post-mortem the mistake they’ve made. What they need is clarity, accountability and the ability to play an active role in the solution.
In my experience, confidence is rebuilt when you demonstrate trust in the team member by allowing them to take an active role in fixing the issue at hand. If you remove them from the recovery actions, you risk making them feel even more powerless, sapping any remaining confidence. Alternatively, when you involve them in the solution, you demonstrate that you still believe in their judgement and ability to contribute. Your show of faith will go a long way to rebuilding their confidence.
Confidence doesn’t return because someone says, “Don’t worry about it” while excluding you from the go-forward plans. It returns when people see that they are still trusted regardless.
Good leaders understand that how they respond after someone fails can shape that person’s growth far more than the failure itself.
Liza: Rebuilding confidence starts before the mistake ever happens — with the environment you’ve built as a leader.
First I work with the individual to understand how the mistake came about. Not to assign blame but to encourage them to identify what processes or checks could be put in place so it doesn’t happen again. That reframe matters. It shifts the conversation from “you did something wrong” to “here is an opportunity to make things better.” That only works when the mistake was unintentional — and most mistakes are.
But the individual conversation is only part of it. Confidence is rebuilt in the room with their peers. When you’ve created a team culture where mistakes are accepted as part of growth — where people support each other through errors rather than judge them — the individual doesn’t carry the weight alone. The team rallies around them. And that collective response is what genuinely restores confidence.
As a leader your job is to create that environment before the crisis, not just manage the aftermath.
How do you lead with confidence when you don't feel confident?
Ash: Firstly, can I say all of us have faced this at one time or another. Our level of confidence is far from constant. Leading with confidence when you don’t feel it starts with understanding that confidence is not the same as certainty. People don’t always need you to have every answer, but what they need from a leader is calm, clarity and direction.
While it may seem counterintuitive the key is not to fake confidence when it’s just not there. False confidence can feel hollow, and people usually sense it fast. It’s better to be honest while still providing leadership with honest statements like, “ I’m not sure, but let’s find out.”
Confidence often comes after action, not before it and waiting until you feel completely ready can lead to hesitation. Alternatively, taking the next thoughtful step, staying calm, and being willing to adjust as new information emerges is what builds confidence over time.
Leadership is not the absence of doubt for you will always have hesitations regardless of your experience. Rather, leadership is about being calm and decisive, even when your confidence is low.
Liza: The first thing I do is look inward. Am I not feeling confident because of fear — or because of uncertainty? They are different things and they need different responses.
If it’s fear — I remind myself that most problems are fixable. Fear is a distraction. Acknowledge it and move on.
If it’s uncertainty — not knowing how something will unfold — I focus on the work at hand. No leader has all the answers. That’s not a weakness, it’s just the reality of leading through something difficult.
What I won’t do is let either of those feelings show to the team. Not because I’m pretending everything is fine — but because a leader’s composure is itself a form of leadership. When the team sees you calm and steady, they can stay focused. When they see you uncertain or shaken, that travels through the room fast.
You can acknowledge you don’t have all the answers. That’s honest and your team will respect it. But showing them you’ve lost confidence — before the facts are even clear — is the last thing they need from you.
Your job in those moments is to create the calm. Even when you don’t feel it yourself.
This is the final part of our series. But the conversation doesn’t stop here.
Ash and I are taking this live — a Substack live session where we go deeper, answer your questions directly, and talk about the leadership moments that don’t fit neatly into a Q&A format.
Details coming soon. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it.
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