When Things Go Wrong

How great leaders respond

Leadership gets tested when things don’t go to plan. Not in the smooth quarters or polished strategy sessions, but in the messy moments where decisions carry weight, pressure builds, and people look to you for clarity. In the second part to our Q&A leadership series, Liza Lau and I look candidly for a candid Q&A at leadership when things go wrong, including resilience, accountability, communication, and what people actually need from leaders during difficult periods.

What does owning a mistake actually look like at senior level?

AW: Owning a mistake as a leader isn't just about saying the words "I was wrong", in fact making such a statement in the absence of conviction and action will do more harm than good to your credibility. ownership of a mistake, as a leader, is about taking full accountability without pivoting to excuses or shifting the blame up, down or sideways. Speed of response in the situation is also important. By rapidly accepting responsibility, without reservation, I’m also modeling appropriate authenticity through vulnerability. When that's paired with strong self-awareness, it stops being a "failure" and becomes a powerful leadership tool that builds deeper trust and psychological safety across the entire organization.

LL: It starts with courage. The courage to stand up and say — this didn't go the way it should have, and I own that. But owning a mistake isn't just the acknowledgement. It's what comes after. Go back to the source. Understand where it went wrong and why. Then bring solutions — not just an apology, but a clear path to mitigate the damage and prevent it happening again. Use it as a case study. What do we do differently next time? What do we put in place so we catch it earlier — or ask for guidance before it becomes a crisis? That's when something powerful happens. The people around you — your team, your stakeholders — watch how you handle it. And when they see a leader own it fully and move forward constructively, it creates safety. It tells everyone in the room: this is an organisation where you can put your hand up, learn, and do better. That safety is one of the most valuable things a senior leader can build.

When things go wrong, how much do you tell your team — and how much do you hold back?

AW: I aim for radical transparency on the "what" and the "why," of the situation while holding back the "noise" that doesn't help the team move forward. For me, it is about being honest about the reality of the situation so that the team feels respected and informed, while steery away from counterproductive discussions of blame. I consciously filter out any chaotic, unverified information or high-level pressures that would only serve to overwhelm my people and distract them from what we need to do. In a situation like I am the filter that provides clarity, ensuring my people have all the context they need to execute on the solution without the weight of unnecessary distractions.

LL: Transparency is non-negotiable for me. But there's a difference between being transparent and sharing everything. I communicate what is factual. What we know, what we don't know, and what we're doing about it. What I hold back is anything based on assumption, speculation, or incomplete information — because sharing that doesn't help the team, it just creates unnecessary fear. I also filter out anything that introduces politics into the situation. A crisis is hard enough. The last thing a team needs is noise that distracts them from solving the problem in front of them. Give people the facts. Be honest about the gaps. Focus everyone on what comes next.

What do your team need from you in the first 24 hours of a crisis?

AW: Those initial 24 hours are about providing a calm influence, steady guide and the clearest possible direction for your people. My experience is that my team needs three things immediately from me; presence, prioritization, and cadence. In those initial 24 hours I make it a point to be visible and accessible so they feel supported and safe to work towards the required solution. Stripping away secondary tasks gives them a singular, clear focus on the immediate problem. Finally, I set the cadence ensuring we are moving with urgency but not so fast as to overwhelm or drive poor decisions. It’s about being the person who absorbs the chaos so they can execute with a clear head.

LL: Presence and accessibility. Be there. Be reachable. That alone tells the team they're not navigating this alone. But the thing I've found matters most in those first 24 hours is giving the team space to speak. Not jumping straight to solutions — letting people share what they're seeing, what they're feeling, what they think needs to happen. That process of talking it through does something important. It helps the team absorb the situation together and move from reaction to action as a unit. A leader's job in that room isn't to have all the answers. It's to create the conditions where the answers can surface. When people feel heard and supported, problems get solved faster. That's what the first 24 hours are really about.

Keep your eye out for Part 3 of the Q&A, next week, when Liza and I look at the conversations that matter for a leader.