I am right, in a good way

Do you get tired of being right all the time? It’s a burden, especially when people resent it. They’ll deny you were right, nitpick minor details, and stick to being wrong just to spite you. They might acknowledge you’re right in private but claim otherwise in public and call you an arrogant ass. Not that I’m bitter about it.

You’d think that people would appreciate having their mistakes and faulty assumptions identified and corrected, but they don’t—at least not publicly. Are people’s egos that fragile? Yes, they are. Do they prioritize appearance over fact? Yes, they do. Are people wrong to act this way? No, they’re not. They’re not being wrong—you’re being right the wrong way.

While TV and movies often glorify the lone hero, in real life, people work together to achieve their goals. If you publicly point out a person’s mistake or poor judgment, you hurt their reputation and cause co-workers to lose confidence in them, thus compromising their ability to take corrective action. People aggressively protect their reputations so that they can work effectively with others. Even when you’re right, you’re wrong to force someone to defend their reputation and compromise their ability to fix issues. Let’s discuss how to be right in a good way.

Not in public

A famous leadership principle attributed to Vince Lombardi is “Praise in public; criticize in private.” In private, your criticism is far less of a threat to someone’s reputation. While people can still be defensive in private, they’ll generally be more calm and open to considering your point of view. Your conversation is more likely to be constructive.

In addition, even when you’re right on specifics, there may be factors you’re unaware of that make you wrong overall. By discussing your concerns in private, you can learn about all the factors that went into a decision or action, have a deeper conversation, avoid embarrassing yourself, and help solve the larger problem.

It’s not personal

You can also avoid making people defensive or resentful by focusing on the issue rather than the person. Individual people are rarely the problem, just like individual people are rarely the solution. It takes a team and a system to both create and resolve issues.

Instead of pointing out that a person said or did something wrong, identify the problem that we, as a team, have. Identify the systemic issues that allowed the problem to arise. Focus on correcting the root causes that could prevent any related recurrence, as you do for service incidents.

For example, say your service is having intermittent failures and some doofus on your team suggests adding more retries. Instead of telling the doofus that retries will either hide the problem or make it worse, you say, “Retries might work, but I’m concerned that we have a serious underlying issue. We can use our telemetry to identify and isolate the failure mode before it becomes worse.” It’s not about you or the doofus. It’s about us, the team, solving our shared issue.

I’m under attack

How should you respond if you’re the one being corrected? Your first intuition will be to defend yourself and your reputation. However, that defensiveness may be seen as combative, insecure, and self-centered.

Instead, if someone criticizes your thoughts, decisions, or actions, consider that you may have misread the situation. Ask open questions with genuine curiosity. “Tell me more about that.” “What drove you to that conclusion?” “Why do you feel that way?” Provide facts as needed for context, avoiding judgment or opinion. Ensure the other person feels understood and respected. Then, provide an enlightened response that addresses the person’s concerns. Responding this way shows you are a thoughtful, open, and confident person with high integrity.

You’re so smart

It’s nice to be smart and right, but not at the expense of your teammates’ reputations and effectiveness. Provide constructive feedback in private, learning more about the factors and thinking involved. Focus on solving systemic problems, not on individual mistakes. Show maturity and grace when you are criticized, asking questions and seeking to understand concerns.

Perhaps you’d prefer to correct rivals in public to get credit for your intellect and differentiate yourself in rewards discussions. Doing so is divisive and puts your personal interests ahead of the well-being of your team. You get a short-term win but a long-term loss. Instead, be someone who respects teammates and drives systemic solutions. You’ll show you are a leader worthy of increased responsibility and praise.