We all make mistakes. My 5-year-old son moved cautiously through the doorway to my study like a dog knowing that shoe was special. My wife had told me earlier about his poor decision. She had ended the conversation earlier with my son by saying, “You’ll have to tell your father when he gets home.” So, while I was expecting this conversation, I was not looking forward to it. He softly told me what he had done as I did my best to listen with steady concern in my eyes. Then he surprised me by dropping his tear-filled face downward and saying, “I’m a bad kid.”

Oh boy. I can’t let that comment go without a thoughtful response. Think! What would Beaver’s Dad say? (Ask your parents if you don’t know The Beaver.) For someone who has studied communication and leadership for a couple decades, my brain was coming up empty. Wait a minute. I got it! Call it divine intervention that this even came to mind; the leadership principle of separating behavior from the person. I knelt down to look him in the eye and I said, “Hey! You are not a bad kid. You made a bad decision that led to some bad behavior. We need to get rid of the bad behavior, but I don’t ever want to get rid of you.”

As a leader, what you say will dramatically affect the development of the people on your team. Because we are all imperfect beings, everyone will make mistakes. And when they do, how you handle the situation will determine the impact it has on their future behavior. In his book Up, Down or Sideways: How to Succeed When Times are Good, Bad or In Between, Mark Sanborn points out that we most often base our future expectations strictly on our experience from the past. In other words, we create a glass ceiling that caps our future success based on what we’ve accomplished in the past. Sanborn points out that we can break through that ceiling when we change our internal dialogue.

So what are three steps leaders can take to encourage a better internal dialogue in our teams?

1. Separate the behavior from the person

Don’t allow a person’s actions to become his or her own personal identity. Bad behaviors are the result of bad choices, but that doesn’t make them a bad person. As the leader, we can use dialogue to separate the two. For example, “Jake, the decision to discount the price didn’t lead to the result we wanted. What would you change next time?” Instead of saying, “Jake, you’re my sales discounter! It didn’t work again. You’ve got to change.”

2. Assume the best in people

John Maxwell says that leaders with positive assumptions about people will generate positive motivation, encouragement, and leadership. Negative assumptions will create negative leadership.  While both approaches can generate results, negative leadership will tend to use hard influence tactics (discipline, consequences, public ridicule, etc.), which creates short-term success, but also animosity toward the leader. On the other hand, positive leadership is based on positive assumptions of people. It will create long-lasting efforts from the team through encouragement, inspiration, and optimism.

3. Help others see a better future by prompting a positive internal dialogue

After a failure, each of us begins our own internal dialogue. If that dialogue tells us that our failure is who we are, then we feel hopeless. We begin to identify with our failure and we act accordingly. Our internal dialogue can be both paralyzing (“I’ll never try that again!”) and predictive (“Well, I’m a horrible salesperson. I’ll never make my quota.”). The best leaders will help people see failure as an event and a learning experience. “That decision didn’t turn out the way we’d hoped. You’re a hard worker and I know you’ll use this experience to improve for the next time. What could you do different next time?”

When leaders define failure as a person instead of an event, that person will begin to see their own identity as failure. After that, their future actions produce more negative effects. They now believe failure is “who they are.” It has become their identity and next it becomes their hopeless future. Break this cycle by thinking about your dialogue. Empower your team today by speaking hope into their tomorrow.

How has a leader’s words affected your thoughts and behaviors?