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When Admins Mess Up: Four Steps Toward Controlling the Damage

When you’re an admin, there are countless ways to make mistakes that can embarrass or even damage you or your boss. Just a few examples: In a hurry, you do the math in your head and get it wrong. You misplace a document or lose track of a critical order for office supplies. You botch arrangements for a meeting or for your boss’s client visit. You insert last year’s data into that critical PowerPoint projection for next year.

So it’s not a question of if you will err, but when. How you react, what you do about it and how you reduce the chances of repeating the mistake will help determine your success at work. Here’s a four-step plan for making the best of these difficult situations.

First: Calm Yourself

For anyone, making a substantial, visible error can be upsetting. But if you’re going to resolve the situation successfully, you need to keep your cool. “Don’t psyche yourself out,” advises Helen Cooke, an organizational development consultant. “You’re human, and mistakes will happen from time to time.”

Blaming yourself doesn’t help you move toward an acceptable resolution. “Forgive yourself, because as long as you are focusing on the mistake, you’re not thinking straight about the present,” says Ann Latham, a management consultant.

And remember, unless your boss is toxic, she should understand your situation and react proportionally. “Executives expect professionalism, not perfection,” says Rachelle Canter, an organizational development consultant and author.

Second: Decide How Much to Say About the Error and to Whom

Especially in the case of errors that crop up during presentations or other meetings, administrative professionals can face split-second decisions about how much to say about the problem, when to say it and to whom.

Suppose a PowerPoint slide you prepared pops up with an error obvious to you but perhaps not to others. “An administrative professional must make the decision whether to embarrass the boss in front of his peers or clients,” says Diane Gottsman, president of The Protocol School of Texas.

How do you decide whether to point out and correct the error immediately or wait to speak with your boss after the meeting? “If the error is damaging to the company, a client or a peer, speak up,” says Gottsman.

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