Mistakes as Fuel for Growth and Credibility: The RISE Model

When Mistakes Feel Like a Threat

Early in my career, I worked for a Managing Director in a global learning and development organization, where I learned very quickly that mistakes were not treated like a normal part of work. They were emotional events. They were treated like moral failures. Small errors triggered outsized reactions. A typo became a crisis. A missed detail became a referendum on my character. Forgetting an attachment took on the energy of a personal betrayal. I learned a lesson no leadership book had prepared me for. I learned what happens when the person who evaluates your performance has not yet learned to evaluate their own emotions.

This is not uncommon. Many people work for leaders whose emotional regulation lags far behind their technical expertise. And when you are new to a firm or a team, this kind of volatility lands hard. It shapes your nervous system. It teaches you what is safe to say out loud and what is not. Anyone who has ever had a volatile manager knows the choreography. You shrink yourself. You over-explain. You apologize before anyone asks for an apology. You brace for storms that have nothing to do with the size of the mistake and everything to do with the emotional weather system your manager brought into the day.

It took me a while to understand that I was not bad at my job. I was simply navigating someone else’s unmanaged feelings. In environments like that, the real risk is never the mistake itself. The real risk is the reaction that follows it.

Ironically, my credibility with her grew because I learned to navigate these landmines. She promoted me for my steadiness, not because the volatility stopped, but because I figured out how to stay centered inside it.

Eventually I realized something essential: the pain point was not the mistake. It was the lack of a process for metabolizing it. There was no structure. No shared language. No way to stay grounded in reality rather than emotion. And anyone who has worked in learning and development knows this truth well: people do not fall apart because of what happened. They fall apart because they do not have a way to make sense of it.

I needed a way to manage up that protected my credibility, stabilized the conversation, and prevented the dynamic from becoming personal. I needed structure where she brought volatility, clarity where she brought heat, stability where she brought chaos, and accountability where she brought drama.

So I built a framework. Not out of ambition or theory, but out of survival.

The Origin Story: From Survival to Leadership Tool

The first version was called P.I.S.S. Yes, P.I.S.S., and the name captured the spirit of the moment. It stood for Problem, Impact, Short-term fix, Solution for the future. But it also captured exactly how the situation felt. It made me laugh under pressure, which meant it helped me think under pressure. Humor is a grounding practice. It is a quiet rebellion in the face of disproportionate reactions.

When I started managing my own team, the framework shifted in a way that surprised me. What had once protected me from volatility now protected the people who reported to me. It became a bridge, a buffer, a way to talk openly about mistakes without summoning the ghosts of fear-based leadership we had all known elsewhere.

Some of my team members were older than me, more seasoned, and wiser in ways I was just becoming. They were sharp, responsible, thoughtful, ambitious, and kind people who cared deeply about doing excellent work, which meant that even small mistakes hit them harder than they should have. These were not career-ending errors, but when you take pride in your work, the smallest slip can feel enormous. They cared, and caring makes you vulnerable to your own expectations.

So I brought the P.I.S.S. model to my team, acronym and all. I explained the steps. I joked, “Let’s walk through the PISS model together, so people don’t stay pissed when mistakes happen.” Something remarkable followed. People laughed. They exhaled. Shame deflated. We could actually talk.

Humor is underrated in leadership. It brings people back into themselves in the moments when they fear they have let someone down, especially in environments where perfectionism sits heavy in the air. It makes the room feel breathable again. The acronym did something simple but powerful: it reminded us that mistakes were part of the job, not proof of inadequacy. It helped people stay present rather than spiral. It turned tense conversations into collaborative problem-solving. It moved us away from shame and toward repair. You do not build credibility by pretending you are flawless. You build it by staying accountable when things go wrong.

With this model, we built a culture where mistakes were not indictments but signals to recalibrate. People raised issues early because they trusted we would handle them together rather than weaponize them. Performance conversations became easier because we already had the muscle memory for honesty. No hiding, no spiraling, what replaced them was healthier: accountability, shared problem-solving, and relief.

That was the turning point. The model was no longer about managing up. It had become a leadership practice. It kept us grounded in difficult moments. It allowed us to name the truth without humiliation. It created belonging where fear used to sit. It reframed mistakes as opportunities instead of indictments. It helped build credibility not with perfection, but with presence. It was about leading with integrity in the exact moments when everything feels most fragile. The model became clearer, more grounded, more psychologically informed. It grew up with me. It evolved.

Introducing the RISE Model

By the time I stepped into formal coaching and leadership roles, it had become clear that the P.I.S.S. framework needed to evolve just as I had. It needed to shed the survival humor and embrace the clarity and steadiness I had grown into. Humor had carried it through its scrappy early life, but the heart of the model was never the joke. The heart was the structure it provided in the exact moments when people felt most fragile. The heart was the way it took a moment, charged with shame, and turned it into something workable.

The name needed to reflect that. It needed to match the clarity, steadiness, and dignity I had grown into, and that I wanted to offer to leaders and teams. The model was no longer about avoiding someone else’s emotional fallout. It was about practicing accountability in a way that lifted everyone involved.

That is how the RISE Model came to life. It is the grown-up version of a tool born from urgency and shaped by experience. It honors dignity, clarity, and growth. It is a tool leaders can use without flinching. It reflects who I became as a leader: someone who understands that accountability is not the opposite of care. It is one of its purest forms. Accountability is a gift, not a threat.

RISE is not about avoiding mistakes. It is about refusing to let them devour your confidence or your culture. It is about lifting the moment to eye level so you can actually see it, understand it, learn from it, and move forward.

The RISE Model

A people-centered, psychologically safe, evidence-informed approach to navigating mistakes with integrity and calm.

R — Recognize

This is the moment where you say what happened. Cleanly. Simply. Without emotional self-harm or elaborate self-defense.

“Here is what happened.”

Recognition is grounding. It builds stability. It signals: I am grounded. I can handle this. I can be trusted to tell the truth without spiraling. Psychologically, naming the event reduces stress response and shifts the brain out of fear and into problem-solving. For leaders, this moment sets the tone. People take emotional cues from the person in charge. Leaders who can do this regulate the entire room.

Recognition does not ask you to be perfect. It asks you to be present.

I — Impact

This is where the conversation becomes collaborative rather than punitive.

“What are all the potential impacts? Let’s make sure we see the full picture.”

Impact mapping transforms the moment from a private shame spiral into a shared diagnostic exercise. Instead of asking “why did you do that,” or “what is wrong with me,” we shift to “What is affected, and how do we address it?”

This step builds credibility quietly. When you can face the truth without collapsing, people trust you more. When you invite others into the analysis, they trust you faster.

Impact is not about blame. It is about visibility.

S — Solve (Short-term)

Mistakes often create urgency, and urgency without structure creates panic. Solve keeps the focus on stabilizing the present moment.

“What can we do right now to stabilize the situation?”

Solve is triage. It does not demand perfection or over-explanation. It demands clarity. The immediate fix matters because it demonstrates capability when it counts. For managers, modeling calm problem-solving teaches teams that mistakes are manageable, not catastrophic. It creates real-time psychological safety. That tone shapes culture more than any value statement ever could.

Solve shows you can act before you overthink.

E — Evolve (Long-term)

This is where accountability becomes growth. Solve fixes the present. Evolve protects the future.

Evolve asks:

• What behaviors need to change?

• What process failed?

• What structural gap allowed this mistake to occur?

• What guardrails would prevent recurrence?

And then the most important action of all, the part that differentiates real leadership from crisis management:

Schedule a revisit.

A week later. A month later. After the next iteration of the workflow.

The revisit is where evolution becomes evidence. The revisit signals maturity, accountability, and genuine learning. It tells people their learning matters to you. It tells them you are serious about change. It converts the mistake into data, and the data into evolution. A mistake that never repeats becomes proof of integrity rather than a stain on credibility.

Evolve is where individuals and systems grow at the same time.

Why RISE Works

The RISE Model aligns with what research across human capital, behavioral psychology, and leadership studies has been telling us for years:

1. Mistakes trigger shame, not strategy. Structured dialogue interrupts the spiral, brings people back to clarity, and activates problem-solving.

2. Credibility grows when leaders respond without panic. Teams trust leaders who are emotionally regulated in difficult moments.

3. Early error reporting reduces escalation. People hide mistakes in cultures where errors are punished. Early reporting is the real risk mitigation.

4. Teams bond through real moments, not flawless ones. Shared recovery becomes shared strength. Repair creates trust. Perfection does not.

5. Change requires process redesign, not personal blame. Mistakes reveal systems, not just people.

Growth is not the opposite of error. It is the product of how we engage with it.

Global Patterns in How Mistakes Are Managed

Across industries and continents, a strikingly consistent pattern is emerging:

Japan: Engineering teams that use structured recovery conversations see reduced perfectionism-driven burnout and increased innovation cycles.

Germany: Manufacturing teams that encourage early reporting experience fewer workflow disruptions and faster recovery times.

United States: Financial and compliance teams use structured mistake processes to avoid conduct risk fueled by silence and fear.

India: Tech teams incorporate retrospective cycles that prevent repeated errors and strengthen cross-functional communication.

Different places, different norms, same truth:

• Mistakes are inevitable.

• Structures for recovering from them are optional.

• Teams that choose structure outperform those that choose blame.

Key Takeaway

Mistakes do not weaken credibility. Avoidance does. Credibility grows when leaders and teams transform mistakes into clarity and redesign. The RISE Model offers a simple, repeatable structure to transform moments of fear into catalysts for learning. RISE turns errors into evolution.

Practical Tool for Leaders: The RISE Conversation Guide

Recognize: Name the mistake.
Impact: Collaboratively identify consequences.
Solve: Agree on the immediate fix.
Evolve: Design the long-term change.
Revisit: Return to evaluate how the solution worked.

Accountability becomes trust when it is practiced in real time with structure, steadiness, and care.

📚 Further Reading on Accountability, Emotional Regulation, and Learning Cultures

Edmondson, A. (2019). The Fearless Organization. Wiley. https://fearlessorganization.com
🌱 Seminal work on psychological safety and why people hide errors in unsafe cultures.

Brown, B. (2018). Dare to Lead. Random House. https://brenebrown.com/hub/dare-to-lead/
🌱 Explores shame resilience, difficult conversations, and how leaders create environments where mistakes fuel growth.

Gallup. (2023). Workplace Culture Report. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/workplace-culture.aspx
🌱 Quantifies how accountability, transparency, and early error acknowledgment strengthen performance and trust.

Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. (2022). Restorative practices in organizational life. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/jab
🌱 Evidence for structured repair processes reducing turnover and improving team cohesion.

© Susanne Muñoz Welch, Praxa Strategies LLC. All rights reserved.