Some mistakes can't be reversed. The contract is lost, the number is out, the client has read the email. Even if you repair part of it, the damage is done, and your job may be on the line.
In 2020, Forbes asked 13 members of its Coaches Council what to do in exactly that situation. I was one of them. Six years and a lot of coaching for leaders later, here are the 13 steps as I read them now.
Jobs are lost through the stress reaction, rarely through the mistake itself. Watch for 3 patterns: Moving away (hiding), moving against (blaming), moving toward (solving). Only the third one keeps you in the room. What's done is done. Step forward, take responsibility, and join the repair.
Origin: Mitchell Shack, Centauric
Say it before anyone else does. A prompt admission shows humility and ownership, the two things employers look for after a failure. If you lead a team, they're watching how you do it. Then move on to the solution and make sure the learning spreads beyond you.
Origin: Lesly Higgins
Realistic means both: Your own actions and the circumstances that led there. Not less, not more. Then offer a concrete way to limit the damage. If this was a one-off, offer to carry the lessons into your work. People forgive a one-off. They don't forgive a pattern.
Origin: Faisal Khan, 1ExtraordinaryLife
Everyone learns more from mistakes than from what goes well. To keep a mistake from becoming irreparable, compare actual and target early, and keep feedback cycles short. Stand by your error and ask for quick, open feedback. Sitting still and hoping nothing happens is the one move that always fails.
Origin: Michael Thiemann, Strategy-Lab
After a disaster, hiding feels natural. Shame and blame love an empty office. Keep turning up and keep acting. People need to see your behaviour, and words won't do it. Stephen Covey's line fits: "You can't talk your way out of a problem you behaved yourself into."
Origin: Amy Leneker, Compass Consulting
A round of apologies through the organisation is necessary. It's also the easy part. The hard part is a sober analysis: What went wrong, what you learned, and which mechanism now prevents a repeat. That's the leadership and strategic thinking that rebuilds trust in you.
Origin: Carol Parker Walsh, Carol Parker Walsh Consulting
You can't undo the past. You can treat it as a lesson and say so. Make sure the key stakeholders know you hold yourself accountable and that you have a plan for the next time a similar situation comes up. Nobody is error-free. The ones who recover are the ones who show they've learned.
Origin: Susan Sadler, Sadler Communications
This one is mine, and I still coach it the same way. Before you do anything, give yourself a moment. In a negative situation, stress arrives fast and makes you do something even more wrong. Take a few deep breaths, slow down, think. Once your thoughts and feelings are gathered, you handle the situation far better than in the first 5 minutes.
Origin: Cristian Hofmann, Empowering Executives, SUPERGROUP AG
Mistakes happen, because humans work here. The next time the fear of consequences hits, shift from "what happened" to "what did I learn". The reframe sounds small. It changes which part of your brain does the thinking, and that's where the new solutions come from.
Origin: Sheila Carmichael, Transitions D2D
Put real thought into alternatives. Then visit every key stakeholder, own the mistake, present your first options, and let them have a say in how to make it right. Buy-in on the repair brings back trust faster than any apology.
Origin: Karan Rhodes, Shockingly Different Leadership
Honesty and an apology are the minimum. The difference between declared ownership and real ownership is a recovery plan that's already running. So when you say "sorry", you can add what's already been done. That gives everyone around you a layer of safety.
Origin: Inga Bielińska, Inga Arianna Bielinska Coaching Consulting Mentoring
Make the gain from the high-profile mistake visible and ask that it be used. That sounds odd in a "you can't make mistakes" culture. In the right circumstances the company gains, if you're game. Instead of hiding, admit it and show what you and the company now know that you didn't before.
Origin: John M. O'Connor, Career Pro
Ownership from a place of self-compassion works better than ownership from self-contempt. The self-critical version thinks slower, narrower and worse. The compassionate version sees the mistake as a learning opportunity and resolves it faster, clearer and more appropriately.
Origin: Jacqueline Ashley, WorkLifeHealth.design
Most of the 13 steps point to one thing: Speed with the admission, patience with the repair. The admission has to come in hours. The repair takes months, and people judge the months.
Whether every mistake deserves a full recovery plan, I doubt it. Some need a single honest sentence and then silence. Knowing which one you're facing is the part that coaching for leaders is for.
Calm down before you react. A few deep breaths slow things down, because stress in that moment pushes you towards a second mistake. Then admit the mistake before anyone else raises it.
What usually decides it is your reaction to the mistake. Hiding or blaming others erodes trust quickly. Stepping forward, owning it and working on the fix keeps you in the room.
Bring a recovery plan that is already running when you apologise. Visit the key stakeholders, present your first options and give them a say in the repair. That involvement restores trust faster than any apology.
The admission has to come within hours, while the repair takes months. People judge you on how you behave during those months. Keep showing up and acting, because behaviour carries more weight than explanations.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: Resilience at work: How to stay resilient after setbacks · 13 effective ways for leaders to embrace failures as opportunities · Executive Coaching Zurich · Leadership mindset: Staying effective when the pressure rises
Note: The 13 steps come from the Forbes Coaches Council expert panel "13 Actionable Steps To Take If You've Made A Disastrous Mistake At Work", published 23 July 2020. Contribution no. 8 is my own. My reading of the other twelve is mine, and it isn't a quote of my colleagues' wording.
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
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