Avoiding accusatory “you”s helps avoid placing unintended blame.

The study revealed that mistakes themselves are neither good nor bad. Their impact hinges on the broader context. When incompetent people made mistakes, it just reinforced other’s already negative impressions. It was more of the same.

When competent people made mistakes, though, it had the opposite effect. Successful people are hard to identify with. They seem so perfect that it’s hard to connect. And that’s why mistakes can help. Because when otherwise competent people make a mistake once in a while, it humanizes them. It makes them more real, which makes them more likable.

Hiring and promotion, for example, particularly for leadership roles, usually depend on how competent someone seems.

Telling someone they’re smart, good at math, or a great presenter implies that their performance depends on a stable trait. If they did well on a test, they have that trait, but if they did badly, well, they’re just out of luck. They don’t have what it takes and there’s not much they can do to change it.

But rephrasing that feedback as process praise is more likely to have the intended effect. Telling someone they did well, or did a good job on a test or presentation, focuses less on stable traits and more on the particular instance at hand. Which means if things don’t go so well once in a while, it’s not a mark of failure or lack of ability. It’s just a misstep and a reminder to work harder next time around.

Be decent to people. Treat everyone with fairness and empathy. This doesn’t mean that you lower your expectations or convey the message that mistakes don’t matter. It means that you create an environment where people know you’ll hear them out, that you’re emotionally consistent and fair-minded, and that they’ll be given second chances for honest mistakes. (If they don’t own up to their mistakes, or if they blame someone else, or if the mistake is the result of some unethical behavior, that’s a different story, and something that shouldn’t be tolerated.)