We hand a toddler a crayon and call their doodles “art”. We watch a kid trip over their own feet and call it “figuring it out.” We give five-year-olds infinite chances to learn to tie their shoes, share a toy, say sorry and mean it. But then somewhere between the school bus and the boardroom, we stop doing that for grown-ups.
I see it in my coaching sessions every week! A parent in leadership will describe their eight-year-old’s meltdown with more tenderness than frustration (“she’s still learning to regulate!”) and describe their direct report’s rough week with zero patience at all (“he should know better by now”). Both humans! But differing levels of understanding and compassion.
Some might say that adults have more power to change the world than kids do. We’re the ones with the votes, the paychecks, the seats at the table, etc. A child’s hopes and dreams are usually realized later. An adult’s hopes and dreams are plans that could start today.
I’m noticing that somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, expectations change. Once you’re old enough to know better, you lose the right to be forgiven for not knowing better yet. We forget that adults are also still becoming. (I’m not fully evolved! I doubt you are!) They’re figuring out how to regulate under pressure, too. They just don’t get a “she’s still learning” pass for it.
I want us building teams (and families, and communities) where grown adults get the same benefit of the doubt we hand a kindergartner on day one. I want us to look at mistakes with curiosity instead of an accusation – at least on the first pass.
Here’s how that looks in practice:
- When someone messes up, ask what they were trying to do before you decide what they did was wrong.
- Give the same coaching you’d give your kid: name the behavior, not the character. “That decision missed the mark” rather than “you’re careless”.
- Extend the same patience you’d give a toddler learning to walk. It’s pretty rare to master anything on the first try, at eight or forty-eight. Where can you provide a little extra support to see what they’re capable of?
Let me be clear: I realize bottom lines can’t sustain ‘everyone-learning-to-walk’ levels of inexperience. But rarely is it ever black and white like that. Patience breeds engagement, loyalty and growth.
This patience makes you the kind of leader people actually want to grow around, instead of the kind they perform for and hide mistakes from. The compassion you give your kids isn’t just a parenting skill. It’s also a leadership skill, and it can extend from your kitchen table to the board room table.
That innocence in adults never disappeared. I think we’ve stopped looking for it.