When you make a mistake at work, how you handle its immediate aftermath can often overshadow the mistake itself.
First, here's what not to do:

1. Don't hope that if you act like it wasn't a big deal, your boss might think it wasn't a big deal either. This strategy will actually compound the damage: Your boss will be far more alarmed that you don't really care that you made a mistake than she will be by the mistake itself. Rather than making the mistake less noticeable, what will really stand out is that you're not taking responsibility for it.

2. Don't try to cover it up. If your boss finds out later on that you hid a problem from her, you will have a permanent credibility problem—as well as a boss who may feel compelled to poke around to find out what else you might not be telling her about.

3. Don't make excuses or be defensive. This almost guarantees your boss will respond badly.

When you make a mistake at work, how you handle it can often say much more about you than the mistake itself.

Reasonable bosses understand that no one is perfect and mistakes will occasionally happen — what they care about is how you follow up on that mistake. As it happens, there’s a pretty foolproof formula for handling it well. If you follow this formula (and have a reasonable boss), you’ll likely be surprised at how well he or she responds.

Here’s the formula:

1. Tell your boss what happened — immediately. Do not put it off out of fear. I will be far more upset if time is allowed to pass before I’m informed. Delaying sends the message that you value your own comfort over the needs of your work.

2. Take responsibility for it. Don’t make excuses, and don’t be defensive. Use words like: "I really screwed this up. I'm sorry." In fact, the more concerned you seem, the less likely she is to feel she needs to impress the severity on you. After all, if you proactively show that you get it, there's no need for her to underscore it.

3. Tell me how it happened. Not only do I want to know, I want to know that you know.

4. Most importantly, explain how you plan to ensure it doesn’t happen again. If you don't understand how it happened, you're not well equipped to keep it from happening again.

This formula works because when someone makes a mistake, what a boss needs to do is make sure that the person understands the seriousness of it and knows how to avoid it in the future. If you take the initiative to cover those things yourself, then your boss doesn’t need to do it herself (and having your boss impress upon you how serious a mistake was tends to be much less pleasant than saying it yourself). You're going to make mistakes from time to time, and any halfway human boss knows that. As long as your mistakes remain occasional and not constant, what matters most is how you handle them.

In other words, do your boss’ job for her — eliminate the need for her to reprimand you by reprimanding yourself.

Why don’t more people realize this? and yes I used a 'SHE' as the Boss.

nice post.

I don't Ve a boss sha

hoekay.

LadyH:
hoekay.

You again. Lool