Can We Offer Each Other a Little More Grace?
- TrudyS
- May 4
- 5 min read
The Case for Private Correction in a High-Stakes World
Picture this: It's T-minus twenty minutes before the doors open at a conference you've spent months organizing. You're moving at warp speed — mentally juggling a dozen unfinished details, running on too little sleep, and talking to two staff members in passing when your brain, in its exhausted state, reaches for the wrong word. You misgender a colleague you deeply respect and care for. Not out of malice. Not out of indifference. Simply because your overwhelmed mind slipped a gear.
And before the moment can pass, before you can catch yourself or quietly circle back, someone in the room calls it out. In front of everyone.
Does the correction make things better? Or does it simply create a new kind of discomfort — for you, for the colleague being referenced, and for the room?
I've been sitting with this question, and I think it's one worth exploring together.
The Ancient Wisdom We Keep Forgetting
There's a leadership principle that goes back at least to the first century BC, when Roman writer Publilius Syrus counseled: "Reprove your friends in secret, praise them openly." Leaders from Catherine the Great to Coach Vince Lombardi used this method to build winning teams. It's not a new idea. And yet, in our current cultural moment — where accountability has become a public sport — we seem to have collectively set it aside.
The wisdom is rooted in simple human psychology. As one management guide puts it, public reprimands can be humiliating, triggering defensiveness and shutting down communication — the focus shifts from learning to saving face, while a one-on-one setting allows for a more open and constructive conversation where the person feels respected and more receptive to feedback.
This isn't just a management theory. It's basic human dignity.
Intent Matters — And So Does Context
There's a meaningful difference between someone who consistently, deliberately misgenders a colleague and someone who makes a tired, stressed, split-second verbal slip. Collapsing those two things into the same category — and responding to both with public correction — misses something important about how human beings actually work.
Grace means choosing to respond with patience and understanding rather than retaliation or judgment. It requires humility and self-awareness — recognizing our own limitations and imperfections while acknowledging that others are navigating their own struggles, as Mayo Clinic Connect's piece on cultivating grace puts it so well.
When someone is running a high-stakes event, managing a team, and functioning on fumes, their cognitive bandwidth is genuinely reduced. This isn't an excuse — it's neuroscience. Stress affects our recall, our language processing, our ability to monitor our own speech. A slip in that environment is often exactly what it looks like: a slip. Not a statement.
Research from the Self-Compassion Institute shows that people who are treated with compassion after mistakes are actually more likely to take personal responsibility and try to repair the situation — not less. Grace, it turns out, is more effective than public accountability at producing the outcome we actually want.
What Public Correction Actually Does
When a correction happens in front of others, several things occur simultaneously — and most of them aren't helpful.
As PsychSafety.com notes, public feedback can damage psychological safety and create misunderstandings for other team members who may not be aware of the context. The person being corrected is now managing their embarrassment, the reaction of the room, and the correction itself — all at once. In a high-stress professional environment like a conference, that's a lot to absorb in a moment when focused attention is critical.
And what about the colleague whose identity was invoked? Being made the centerpiece of a public correction — even a well-intentioned one — isn't always the gift it might seem. It can feel less like being championed and more like being made an example.
Even in situations where you might need to address behavior, the guidance from management research is clear: stop the moment, then move to a private setting to address it more thoroughly. Studies show that when managers correct employees privately, employees perform better over time.
## The Golden Rule of Feedback
Here's a useful gut-check: before you correct someone publicly, ask yourself how you would feel if every small slip you made — a misused word, a forgotten task, an error of fatigue — was called out in front of your colleagues.
Most of us would find that mortifying. And we certainly wouldn't do it to someone else intentionally, because we understand intuitively that public correction is a form of humiliation, not help.
Never publicly shame anyone — this approach leads to resentment, damaged morale, and a workplace culture headed toward toxicity. That's not a culture any of us wants to build — especially not in mission-driven organizations where trust and psychological safety are foundational.
When Should You Correct Publicly?
To be fair, there are times when an in-the-moment public redirect is genuinely warranted. As Adeline Maissonet writes for GovLoop, public correction should be rare — reserved for safety violations that need an immediate stop, genuinely harmful or discriminatory speech, or situations that are already spiraling. In those cases, the goal is to stop the behavior swiftly and calmly, not to shame — and to follow up privately afterward.
A tired leader using the wrong pronoun while racing through a pre-event checklist doesn't meet that bar. A quiet word later — "Hey, just wanted to note that Jamie uses they/them" — accomplishes everything the public correction attempted, and does it in a way that preserves everyone's dignity.
Building a Culture of Grace
The organizations and communities that do the most good in the world aren't the ones with the most public accountability moments. They're the ones where people feel safe enough to make mistakes, own them, and grow from them.
As the Mayo Clinic Connect reflection on grace puts it: extending grace doesn't mean excusing harmful behavior — it means setting boundaries, prioritizing well-being, and responding with empathy rather than resentment. It's about recognizing that everyone is fighting their own battles and choosing to respond with understanding rather than adding to their burdens.
That is the culture worth building. One where a colleague can pull you aside after the conference doors are open and the chaos has settled, and say softly, "Hey, just so you know — Jamie is a they." And where you can respond, genuinely, "You're right, I'm so sorry — I'll make that right." No audience needed. No scoreboard. Just two humans looking out for each other.
A Final Thought
Grace isn't weakness. It isn't enabling. And it certainly isn't a signal that you don't care about the values at stake. As Jackie J. Reid writes on compassion in difficult situations, true compassion doesn't mean excusing harmful behavior — it means responding with kindness and understanding, even when it's challenging, without sacrificing your own needs and boundaries.
It means trusting that the people around you, when given a private moment and a little room to breathe, are fully capable of doing the right thing.
Most of us — if we're honest — already know when we've slipped. What we need in those moments isn't a public announcement. We need a quiet hand on the shoulder and a chance to make it right.
Let's give each other that.
Does this resonate with something you're navigating on your team or in your organization? I'd love to think through it with you. Book a consultation at yourmissionmaven.com or drop me a note.
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