Posted September 14, 2026

When was the last time you were dead wrong about something? Not a little off. Not right in principle but misunderstood by everyone else. Wrong, and willing to say it out loud to the people you lead.

That question came up in my conversation with Fay Niewiadomski Ph.D on Tim Stating the Obvious, and it's worth sitting with before we rush to the next leadership book or training course. We can spend a lot of time learning how to lead other people without taking an honest look at the person doing the leading.

During our conversation, She said that leadership isn't just something you do. It's who you are and who you become. That sounds good until we have to apply it to ourselves, because now we're not talking about a title, a position, or how many people report to us. We're talking about how we respond when someone questions our judgment, brings us bad news, or points out something we missed.

That's where the work starts. And none of us gets to skip it because we've been doing this for a long time.

Your Comfort Zone Can Become Everyone Else's Problem

When I asked Fay about responsibility and accountability, she brought the conversation back to how we see ourselves. She described the desire to live in a predictable world where we feel in control. When something goes wrong, admitting our part in it means stepping outside that comfortable picture of who we think we are.

Think about how that plays out at work. A deadline gets missed, and our first response is that the team didn't execute. Maybe that's true. But did we explain the requirement? Did we give them the resources? Did we listen when somebody tried to tell us the timeline wasn't realistic?

Those questions don't remove responsibility from the team. They make sure we aren't removing ourselves from it.

To me, accountability means being willing to examine your contribution before you finish explaining everyone else's failure. If the only version of events you're willing to accept is the one where you did everything right, what exactly are you going to learn?

Fay described moving through discomfort and fear into learning and growth. My takeaway is that we have to be willing to look at something we'd rather explain away. Otherwise, we keep repeating the same behavior and wondering why the outcome hasn't changed.

Competence Isn't Enough by Itself

Fay connected leadership to competence, courage, and compassion. What I appreciate about that combination is that it doesn't let us hide behind the part we're already good at.

You might know your profession inside and out. You might be the person everyone calls when something breaks. But knowing what needs to happen and having the courage to act on it are two different things.

Sometimes courage is making an unpopular decision. Sometimes it's telling your boss that the plan has a problem. And sometimes it's admitting to your own team that you were the one who created the confusion.

Then there's compassion, which Fay described in terms of recognizing our own humanity and extending that same understanding to others. That doesn't mean abandoning standards. It means correcting the mistake without treating the person as though the mistake is all they are.

We can hold someone accountable and still help them improve. In fact, if development is part of our responsibility, why would we stop at telling someone they failed? The next conversation should be about what needs to change and how we're going to help them get there.

What Does Their “Yes” Actually Mean?

One of the most useful parts of our conversation was Fay's challenge to look beyond the answer we hear. When somebody says yes, what are they actually telling us?

Maybe they understand the direction and agree with it. Maybe they don't understand but don't want to look unprepared. Or maybe they have learned that disagreeing with us only makes the meeting longer and their day worse.

That's an uncomfortable possibility. It's also one we should be willing to consider before congratulating ourselves on how aligned the team is.

Fay suggested following up with questions about concerns, risks, and anything we might have overlooked. I think that's where we have to slow down. Ask the question, then give people room to answer without jumping in to defend the decision we've already made.

Picture someone asking how your new idea is actually going to work. You hear resistance. They may be thinking about staffing, equipment, time, or the customer who will be affected. What sounds like negativity to you may be the detail that makes the plan workable.

If we want honest input, we have to be willing to hear something inconvenient. Asking people to speak up doesn't mean much if our reaction teaches them not to do it again.

Emotional Intelligence Starts Before You Respond

Fay pushed back on treating emotional intelligence as simply being nice or letting people unload their problems. Her emphasis was on understanding what's happening inside us and managing it before we act.

That's practical leadership. Before you send the email, correct someone in front of the team, or dismiss a concern, ask yourself what you're reacting to. Is the information wrong, or do you just not like hearing it?

There's a difference between being decisive and being irritated. There's also a difference between defending a standard and defending your pride.

I'm not suggesting we need to analyze every feeling before making a decision. We still have work to do. But we should know ourselves well enough to recognize when frustration is starting to make the decision for us.

For someone stepping into leadership for the first time, this is a good place to begin. You don't have to pretend you know everything. You do need to take responsibility for how you respond to the people who are counting on you.

This Applies at Home, Too!

Our conversation also came back to family and the connection between generations. Fay asked whether we really know our children and grandchildren, including what they think, what worries them, and what's happening in their lives.

I said during the interview that I was reflecting on myself, too. It's easy to talk about being present and much harder to look honestly at whether we've made the time.

Providing for people matters. So does knowing them. We shouldn't assume that because we're working hard for our family, we're automatically listening well to our family.

The same question about “yes” applies at home. Are they talking to us because they feel heard, or telling us what they think will end the conversation? Before we offer another lesson, maybe we need to ask another question and actually listen to the answer.

Start With the Question You'd Rather Avoid

Fay left senior leaders with two questions: when did you last deliberately learn a new skill or discipline, and when were you last dead wrong about something? Neither question requires a title to answer. Both require some honesty.

Here's my take. Pick one decision that didn't work out and look at your part in it. Ask someone on your team what you may be missing, then resist the urge to explain why they're wrong. Make time for a conversation at home that isn't about schedules, tasks, or what needs to get done next.

We don't become better leaders just by agreeing with good advice. We have to do something with it, watch what happens, learn from the result, and adjust.

Everyone is entitled to great leadership, whether it's at work, at church, or at home. If we're the ones in that role, we need to keep asking whether the person we're becoming is the leader those people actually need.

For more of this conversation with Dr. Fay Niewiadomski, author of Decisions That Matter, listen to Season 7, Episode 48 of Tim Stating the Obvious. Then ask yourself: what do I need to change before I ask everyone else to change?