Nonprofit Leaders: Why Screwing Up (and Owning it) is a Good Thing

Everybody does it. Makes mistakes, that is.

Especially in these unprecedented times, when our brains are overloaded, our newsfeed is out of control, and uncertainty reigns. These conditions are the perfect storm for overlooked typos, forgotten meetings and other blunders that can have you questioning your sanity—and your self-esteem.

In fact, this happened to us a few weeks ago (as some of you may recall). We had three new positions we were so excited to share via our Career Seekers enewsletter. (Which, by the way, is where we announce new job postings first, along with other tips and advice for those currently in the job search. If you’re not on the list, you can sign up here.)

We got the enewsletter ready to go, then realized we need to hold one of the postings to make a few adjustments. We removed it, hit send—and remembered we forgot to update the subject line, which proudly announced “3 new job postings.” Oooof.

But you know what? We decided to laugh at ourselves and have some fun with it. Once that final job posting was ready, we sent it to our readers with the subject line “2 + 1 = 3” to remind folks that yes, we really do know how to do basic arithmetic.

And guess what? We got our best email open rate—ever. Plus we got some nice feedback from readers who appreciated the humor and transparency. (We could all use every laugh we can get right now, am I right?)

Awhile back, I talked about how it’s ok if we as leaders don’t have all the answers. It’s also ok for us to make mistakes. How else are we going to learn? How else are we going to find the ways that we and our teams need to grow and change? If we pretend that we’re perfect, then we’ll stay stuck right where we are. If we pretend we never screw up, people on our teams and outside our organization never get to know the real us, which can get in the way of true collaboration.

If, on the other hand, we can be open about the fact that we all make mistakes, we can focus on areas for growth and be vulnerable in a way that allows those on our teams (and even clients and partners) to have a deeper connection to us. And that’s the sign of a true leader.