How to lead when your employee has dropped the ball

Let’s talk about one of the messiest parts of leadership. The part we don’t talk about often enough: the moments that feel lonely and tense. Today we are going to unpack how to respond when someone misses a deadline, and you’re left holding the bag. You care about the person, you care about the mission, and suddenly you’re stuck in this pressure-cooker moment thinking, “Do I say something? Do I let it slide? Do I explode? Do I do the work myself?”

When a deadline is missed or when someone on your team drops the ball, your response is more than a reaction. It’s a cue about your culture and, most importantly, a mirror of your mindset. Leadership coach, and author of The Leadership Gap Lolly Daskal writes, “The quality of your leadership is determined by how you respond in moments of tension.”

Most of us intellectually understand this, but when tension actually enters the room, we forget. We might default to silence, overfunctioning or frustration. Each one of these choices doesn’t just shape the outcome of the project but the character of the leader and culture of the workplace. I want to explore how to lead better in those tension-filled moments. According to a study published in the Harvard Business Review, 72 percent of employees say that how a manager responds to mistakes has a greater impact on their trust than how that manager rewards success.

Leaders often fall into three common but ineffective responses:

• Compensation: “I’ll just do it myself.” While this ensures short-term completion, it sends an implicit message: your team cannot be trusted to finish what they start. Over time, this fosters dependency and burnout.
• Avoidance: “Maybe it’ll fix itself.” Ignoring underperformance communicates low standards and breeds uncertainty. Research from Gallup shows that only 26 percent of employees strongly agree that feedback helps them do better work, often because they’re not getting any.

• Emotional reaction: “How could you drop the ball?” Although a natural response, this damages psychological safety, an essential ingredient for learning and risk-taking at work.

None of these approaches addresses the root cause, nor do they reinforce the leader’s ultimate responsibility in creating conditions for people to do their best work. A more sustainable and psychologically grounded approach involves four key steps. Each builds upon the other to create a culture where accountability and trust can coexist.

1. Call out issues clearly and calmly. The human brain craves certainty; leaders must therefore state the facts directly and without judgment. Which can sound like “We agreed on this deadline or this specific outcome. It wasn’t met. Let’s walk through what happened.” Clarity is not criticism. It is a form of care.

2. Invite reflection, not excuses. Rather than interrogate or assign blame, effective leaders adopt a posture of curiosity which can sound like, “Can you walk me through what got in the way?” or  “What made this hard to complete on time?” By surfacing internal or structural blockers, leaders give individuals a chance to take ownership.

3. Coach forward with structure. Reflection without action is just conversation. Leaders must then help co-create systems that make future follow-through more likely. Key questions include, “What’s your plan to ensure this gets done next time?” “What support do you need?” and “What will you do differently going forward?” This is not micromanagement; it is design thinking applied to leadership. It is not about solving the problem for the employee. It is about solving the context around them so they can succeed.

4. Reinforce accountability with belief. This final step is often missed but is critical. When someone fails to meet a goal, their self-confidence typically takes a hit. What leaders do in that moment either erodes or rebuilds that confidence. Saying something as simple as, “I know this didn’t go as planned, but I trust your ability to grow from it,” can transform what might feel like criticism into constructive growth.

When a deadline is missed, it’s easy to ignore, fix it yourself, or react emotionally. But effective leadership demands clarity, curiosity, structure, and belief. A lack of psychological safety taxes human potential, and great leaders work to lift that burden, especially in moments of failure.

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