Correcting Your Leader Is Best Done by Asking for Clarity Instead
When the leader above you makes a mistake, says the wrong thing in a group or client setting, or grossly misreads a situation, it is imperative that they understand the potential consequences and stand ready to make a correction.
Offering this upward feedback can be dicey. No one enjoys being corrected or told they need to fix a mistake they perhaps don’t even realize.
Leaders can sometimes overreact to being corrected, as they often find it embarrassing or as a sign they are being disrespected. Worse yet, the leader might interpret the correction as an insult or an act of insubordination and respond defensively. That’s why those around them are reluctant to raise such issues and hesitant to offer even mild suggestions for improvement.
Yet, letting the misstep stand is a surefire way of allowing it to happen again. Good team members have an obligation to find a productive way to point out the mistake without harming their credibility with the leader.
One avenue is not to correct the leader or point out the blunder, but to ask them to clarify instead. By getting curious as to how the leader saw the event or what they intended to do, a team member can reduce the likelihood of confrontation and increase the probability of an open conversation that gets the same job done without any fuss.
Instead of making declarative statements about what happened or to what effect, team members asking for clarification probe the leader with questions of curiosity, often focused on themselves as learners.
They ask questions like:
What am I missing?
Is there something I have overlooked or failed to consider?
What am I not seeing or appreciating?
Can you help me understand what occurred?
Presuming the leader has a reason or logic behind what they did, asking them to clarify and help you learn through the explanation will often unearth the truth that indeed a mistake was made that needs to be corrected. But by taking the indirect route, the leader draws this conclusion without accusation or admonishment.
Correcting your leader can sometimes be risky. Getting curious and taking the more indirect path to raise the issue is often the best call. As any martial arts master will tell you, the strongest move isn’t always engaging your opponent head-on. Subtlety can often be the best strategy when facing a powerful adversary.
Great post - when I was a junior brand manager at a leading UK brewer, my boss, who was brilliant, challenged me on an assumption based on not enough data and he thought he was right about why the brand was growing. This was in a team meeting. I spent a weekend analysing all the relevant data we had to establish if he was right or my assumption was right - the data analysis showed us something different but what’s important here is the openness he had to a further discussion based on facts. It wasn’t about who was right or wrong but what was really happening. He was a brilliant strategist and I loved working with him, and he taught me a lot. He was open to exploring ideas rather than being closed. And yes, fully agree, challenging your boss head on is probably not a great idea for all sorts of reasons. Thank you for this newsletter.
Please correct me if I have made a mistake. I cannot be surrounded by people that tip-toe around me but are causing an infinite amount of damage discussing my mistake with others behind my back.