What TikTok Taught Me About Leadership

There I was…Ready to launch my very first TikTok video. My daughters post on TikTok all the time.  How hard could it be?

I uploaded the video with no music because it already had music built in. Apparently, TikTok didn’t catch that little detail. What I didn’t know was that if you don’t choose your own audio, TikTok will choose music for you. I had absolutely no clue.

The next morning, my phone started lighting up with text messages from my daughter begging me to take down the post. She proceeds to tell me: “When u put a video on TikTok if u don’t pick a sound or put ur own it’ll pick one for u. It has a bad song with it on there.”

My heart immediately dropped.

What song did TikTok add to my video? I quickly jumped onto TikTok to pull it up…As soon as I hit play, the F-bomb started dropping. Over. And over. And over again.

I was mortified.

This song definitely did not align with The OOPS Factor platform…where leadership, business, and faith intersect. Needless to say, I immediately removed the video, reposted it with the original sound, and texted my daughter back: “OMG. Thanks for telling me. Removed. Reposted. With original sound. Lesson learned. Talk about an OOPS moment!”

The funny thing is…

That’s exactly how many OOPS moments happen.

Not because we’re careless. Not because we’re incompetent. But because we simply don’t know what we don’t know.

Own It

I could have blamed TikTok for not being user-friendly. Instead, I owned the fact that I was learning something new.

Observe the Pattern

Every time we step into unfamiliar territory, we’re going to miss things. Being inexperienced isn’t failure; it’s simply part of the learning curve. The key is recognizing the lesson so we don’t keep repeating the mistake.

Pivot

The fix took less than five minutes. Delete. Repost. Learn from it. Move on. Sometimes we spend more time beating ourselves up than it would have taken to simply correct the mistake.

Steward the Scars

Here’s the irony. I wrote an entire book called The OOPS Factor to help people respond differently to mistakes. OOPS moments happen to me ALL the time. So what did I do after fixing my TikTok blunder? I made another video…telling everyone about it. Yep. I turned my mistake into content. Because if my embarrassing moment can save another new TikTok user from making the same mistake, then my little OOPS served a purpose.

And that’s what Steward the Scars is all about. Use what you’ve learned to help someone else. Honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing. Because leadership isn’t about proving you’ve mastered everything. It’s about being willing to laugh, learn, and let others see that you’re still growing too. And yes…my daughter has officially been promoted to my Social Media manager!

Thanks, KK…I owe you one.