There’s a moment most leaders don’t talk about — not because it’s rare, but because it’s uncomfortable. For me, it showed up again recently when I watched a talented person on my team spiral into a series of avoidable mistakes. I could see every possible solution, every pathway to prevent the inevitable, every contingency plan that would have turned the situation around. The accountant in me was ready to step in and fix it.
And yet… I didn’t.
What made it harder was the internal tug-of-war that showed up alongside it. A part of me flashed back to earlier in my own career — to the managers who never let me make a meaningful decision without editing it, correcting it, or quietly taking over. I remember working late nights convinced I wasn’t truly trusted, that I was just an extra set of hands. I also remember the first leader who finally let me try — and yes, let me fail — and how that moment changed the trajectory of my confidence and my future.
Now here I was, on the other side of that equation. I knew exactly how to step in. I knew exactly how to prevent the failure. And I knew doing so would rob this person of the same kind of defining growth moment someone once gave me.
Because I’ve learned something the hard way:
If I always save the project, I never develop the person.
Leadership isn’t just preventing failure. Sometimes leadership is allowing failure, because the long-term development is worth far more than the short-term rescue.
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The Real Issue: Fear
Accounting — in both public and private sectors — was built on a culture of control, correctness, and getting it right the first time. Many leaders in our profession fall into what I call the “S&C mindset”: steady, cautious, perfection-oriented, and deeply uncomfortable with risk. They delegate the task but not the decision-making. They observe, correct, protect, and rescue.
And unintentionally, they prevent growth.
If staff never own outcomes — including mistakes — they will never build judgment, confidence, accountability, or leadership. This isn’t a generational weakness. It’s a developmental environment problem.
Research supports this: Harvard Business Review’s work on psychological safety and “intelligent failure” shows that professionals develop leadership capacity faster when they’re given responsibility and room to learn from mistakes rather than being tightly managed or rescued. Teams that operate in high-trust, low-fear environments consistently show stronger decision-making, higher adaptability, and deeper long-term capability (Edmondson, HBR; “Failing by Design,” HBR). Gallup reports that employees — especially younger workers — who feel genuine ownership over outcomes, including the ability to make and recover from mistakes, show dramatically higher engagement and are far more likely to stay with their organization.
The takeaway is simple:
Failure isn’t the opposite of success. It’s the foundation of it.
Generations Learning
Understanding generational differences helps leaders shape the right type of growth experience.
- Baby Boomers learned through survival failure — sink or swim. They became resilient but often without support.
- Gen X learned through quiet, independent failure — figuring things out alone, creating self-reliance but sometimes distrust.
- Millennials learned through structured failure — wanting feedback, coaching, and clarity but frequently encountering leaders who hovered or corrected too quickly.
- Gen Z learns best through guided failure — autonomy with direction, and the psychological safety to try, miss, and grow.
Each group responds differently, but all share one universal truth:
People develop fastest when they are trusted enough to try and supported enough to learn.
How Leaders Build People Through Failure
Here are five practical ways to create a high-development environment without sacrificing performance:
1. Create “controlled failure zones.”
Assign tasks with real responsibility and resist the urge to step in unless ethics, safety, or client trust are at risk.
2. Replace correction with curiosity.
Instead of jumping in with the right answer, ask:
• “What was your thinking here?”
• “What options did you consider?”
This builds critical thinking rather than dependence.
3. Let natural consequences teach.
If a deadline slips or a client pushes back, let the team member experience it — with your support. Responsibility creates maturity.
4. Debrief without shame.
After the mistake, walk through:
• What happened?
• Why did it happen?
• What did you learn?
• What will you do differently next time?
This turns failure into insight, not identity.
5. Praise courage, not perfection.
“I’m proud you took initiative.”
“You made a call — that matters.”
This encourages risk-taking and long-term growth.
The Future Calls
Firms that cling to control, perfection, and “the way we’ve always done it” will struggle to survive the next decade. But firms that learn to trust, empower, and develop their people through real experiences — including the messy ones — will thrive.
The next generation of accounting leaders won’t be shaped by protection.
They’ll be shaped by exposure, reflection, and growth.
So here’s the real test of leadership:
Are you rescuing people… or are you developing them?
Change is inevitable.
Firms must adapt or decline.
And the leaders willing to let their people fail — and grow — are the ones building a profession that will last.
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