When I was a teenager, I took a job as an umpire. The first thing I learned in training was to make your calls quickly and with authority. It should be “Strike 3!” Not “Strike 3?” When you make calls indecisively, you erode everyone’s confidence in your ability to make good calls.
This was generally good advice, but it would backfire from time to time. Nothing ignites the fury of parents, players, and coaches like an umpire aggressively defending their objectively incorrect call.
Fast forward to my current role in tech leadership, the stakes are much higher, and the decisions far more complex. Making calls that steer the course of a project or even the entire organization is part of the daily grind. However, the true test of leadership lies in how one navigates the aftermath of a bad call.
Much like the baseball field, every day contains a flurry of decisions and actions. And in this realm too, a bad call can stir a hornet’s nest. Be it a misguided strategy or an ill-judged tactical decision, the repercussions are often immediate and wide-ranging. The social media fallout, the internal discord, and the second-guessing can be a whirlwind of adversity. Within this chaos, I’ve found the essence of effective leadership - the ability to listen, keep an open mind, and engage constructively with feedback, however harsh it may be.
It’s a mark of courage to acknowledge a bad call, and a mark of wisdom to learn from it. As leaders in tech, our decisions often reverberate across teams, projects, and sometimes the entire industry. My journey from that baseball field to the boardroom has highlighted the power of embracing one’s missteps, learning from them, and using them as a stepping stone to better decision-making.
In a world that often rushes to judgment, taking a pause to listen and reflect can be a game-changer. The mark of a true leader is not in the absence of making bad calls, but in the grace and wisdom with which they navigate through them. Whether it’s in the commentary battles on social media, the heated debates in meeting rooms, or on a baseball field amidst a crowd of impassioned spectators, it’s the ability to remain open, receptive, and willing to engage that sets apart exemplary leaders from the rest.
So, the next time you find yourself on either end of a bad call, remember, it’s not the call itself but how you handle the aftermath that truly defines your ability to lead.