Right Kind of Wrong: How the Best Teams Use Failure to Succeed

By Amy Edmondson

In Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive, Harvard Business School professor and renowned leadership scholar Amy Edmondson delivers a bold reframe of failure—transforming it from something to fear into something to master. Drawing on decades of research in psychology, organizational behavior, and high-stakes industries like healthcare and aerospace, Edmondson introduces a powerful distinction: not all failures are created equal. Some derail progress; others are essential to it. This book offers a roadmap for how leaders, teams, and individuals can build cultures that embrace intelligent failure, cultivate psychological safety, and unlock the kind of continuous learning that drives sustainable success. The following summary explores Edmondson’s core frameworks, practical strategies, and transformative insights—positioning failure as a vital ingredient in personal growth, innovation, and thriving leadership.