Why Great Leaders Get Comfortable Being Wrong

About this episode

The episode discusses the importance of leaders admitting their mistakes and the value of vulnerability in leadership.

Every leader gets it wrong eventually. The question is what you do next. Josh and Bob dig into one of the hardest things any leader faces: admitting a mistake out loud. Not waffling, not deflecting, not the classic move of saying the wrong thing louder and hoping it becomes true. Actually owning it. They get into why doubling down is so tempting and so corrosive, how your team almost always knows you're wrong before you do, and why vulnerability ends up being a far stronger position than false certainty. Josh tells the story of bombing an Amazon interview over their "you're right a lot" principle, and how it took him years to understand what that line was actually saying. Bob makes the case that being wrong with your team is no different than being wrong with your spouse or your kids, and that bad news never ages well. If you've ever sat in an all-hands watching everyone trade that look because the person on stage just said something nobody in the room believes, this episode is for you. The world isn't binary. It's mostly gray, and learning to lead in that gray is the whole job. Stay Connected and Informed with Our Newsletters Josh Anderson's "Leadership Lighthouse" Dive deeper…

People in this episode

Hosts: Josh Anderson, Bob Galen

Topics covered

• leadership
• vulnerability
• mistakes
• team dynamics
• communication

Keywords

• leadership
• mistakes
• vulnerability
• team
• communication
• admitting wrong
• management

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Amazon

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