Dr. No #67 – When Someone Screws Up on Your Team, This Is What Real Leaders Do

Hey lawyer,

Sooner or later, someone on your team will make a mistake.

A bad clause.
A missed deadline.
A USD 70,000 error that makes your stomach drop.

What you do in that moment will decide more about your leadership than any board presentation you’ll ever give.

This week’s Dr. No is about that moment.

1. Food for Thought

When someone on your team messes up,
are you trying to feel better…
or to build better results?

Because those two goals require very different behaviours.

2. Insight – Leadership Without the Shouting (aka The Mistake Protocol)

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Yelling at someone who already knows they screwed up is lazy leadership.

It’s emotional masturbation.
It makes you feel better.
It makes them feel worse.
And it fixes absolutely nothing.

Great leaders don’t punish mistakes.
They turn mistakes into systems.

Here’s a simple framework you can steal.

Step 1: Acknowledge. No emotion.

Say:
“It happens.”

Not “It’s fine” (because USD 70,000 is not fine).
Not “How could you?” (because that’s useless).
Just acknowledge reality.

Step 2: Skip blame entirely

They are already blaming themselves.
Adding your disappointment doesn’t rewind time.
It just teaches them to hide the next mistake.

And hidden mistakes are the expensive ones.

Step 3: Focus forward

Ask one question only:
“What’s the plan next time?”

This is where learning happens.
Not in shame.
Not in fear.
In problem-solving.

Step 4: Document the learning

Turn the mistake into a system.
A checklist.
A second review.
A simple rule.

Now nobody else can make the same mistake again.

What happens next is magic:

• That person becomes loyal.
• They speak up earlier next time.
• They catch other mistakes before they happen.
• Your culture shifts from fear to excellence.

That USD 70,000 mistake?
It can easily save you USD 500,000 in future losses.

But if you shout?

They look for another job.
They hide errors.
The team learns to cover things up.
And the same mistake comes back bigger and uglier.

Your job isn’t to point out Point A.
They already know they’re there.

Your job is to show them the path to Point B.

3. Mental Model – Systems Beat Talent (Charlie Munger)

Munger’s brutal truth:
If a smart person keeps making the same mistake, it’s not a people problem.

It’s a system problem.

High-performing organisations don’t rely on heroics.
They rely on processes that make the right behaviour the default.

If your team needs perfection to succeed, the system is broken.

4. AI Booster – Chatquick

Turn your voice into audiobooks and podcasts.

Perfect for:
• Explaining lessons to your team learned after incidents
• Recording internal “what went wrong” briefings for all-hands meetings
• Sharing institutional knowledge without another meeting

Less writing.
More learning.

5. Quote to Reflect

"Habits are either the best or the worst things in the world; they either carry us to heaven or hurl us to hell. Form only those that will prove an honor to you."
— James Clear

P.S.

Some mistakes are too sensitive, too complex, or too political to handle internally.

That’s where Ámbar helps GCs sleep better.

We provide fractional senior counsel for:

• Transfer pricing issues
• Internal tax investigations
• Multi-country tax reporting obligations
• High-risk tax matters where independence matters

No permanent hires.
No internal tension.
Just experienced lawyers who step in, fix the problem, and step out.

If you want fewer fires — and better responses when they happen —
book a call with Ambar.

See you next week,
Dr. No