As long as someone is already perceived as competent, acknowledging mistakes can be beneficial.

Optimism sets a different machine in motion. Especially in difficult moments, the people you lead need to feel confident in your ability to focus on what matters, and not to operate from a place of defensiveness and self-preservation. This isn’t about saying things are good when they’re not, and it’s not about conveying some innate faith that “things will work out.” It’s about believing you and the people around you can steer toward the best outcome, and not communicating the feeling that all is lost if things don’t break your way. The tone you set as a leader has an enormous effect on the people around you. No one wants to follow a pessimist.

True integrity—a sense of knowing who you are and being guided by your own clear sense of right and wrong—is a kind of secret leadership weapon. If you trust your own instincts and treat people with respect, the company will come to represent the values you live by.

When hiring, try to surround yourself with people who are good in addition to being good at what they do. Genuine decency—an instinct for fairness and openness and mutual respect—is a rarer commodity in business than it should be, and you should look for it in the people you hire and nurture it in the people who work for you.

Every manager lives with the fantasy that their team can read their mind. But in reality, you have to make your expectations clear. And your team can’t be excellent if you’re not holding them accountable to the standards you’ve set. You normalize these corrections by making them swiftly, whenever they’re needed.

And make those corrections in private. I can still feel the flush of shame and horror that crept up from my collar when I was screamed at in the dining room by the chef de cuisine at Spago; I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. And while it was a terrible experience, it was also a privileged peek at a mistake I never wanted to make.

Correct an employee in front of their colleagues, and they’ll never forgive you. In fact, the wall of shame that goes up may mean they can’t even absorb what you’re telling them. Issue the same correction in private, though, and it’s a different exchange.