My leadership team is highly polite, but when an initiative fails, they use passive, corporate language to explain it away rather than taking personal responsibility. How do I get them to show true vulnerability and own their mistakes?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When leaders use passive language to describe failures, they are practicing status management to protect themselves from blame. This lack of vulnerability prevents genuine problem-solving and stalls your organization's growth. To fix this, you must change the cultural norms of your leadership meetings. Start by changing how you, as the Visionary or Integrator, react to mistakes. If you criticize or penalize people when things go wrong, you are training them to hide the truth. Instead, actively reward vulnerability. When a leader openly admits a failure, thank them for their honesty and transition immediately into collaborative problem-solving using the IDS process. During your weekly Level 10 Meetings, enforce the rule of absolute ownership on the Scorecard and Rocks. If a metric is red or a Rock is off track, do not allow vague explanations like we faced unexpected delays. Require the owner to state clearly what went wrong and what they are doing to fix it. Utilize simple belonging cues and shared vulnerability exercises, such as a three-up three-down feedback session during your quarterlies, to make sharing struggles a normal, safe part of your team's operating system. Once vulnerability becomes a team norm, the passive language will disappear.