Apology starts the whole process
You and I make mistakes. Our friends make mistakes. Parents make mistakes, and even leaders make mistakes. And when we make mistakes, what should we do? Say the three most important words which are? “It’s Your Fault!”
Not really. We need to say the three most powerful words to diffuse any tense situation and that is “I am sorry.” But someone says, “Because of the frequency of our mistakes, the three most important words “I am sorry” is so pitifully insufficient, it now has to be replaced by the seven most important words and they are, “I am sorry… this is a recording!”
Now, let me bring you to the workplace. You have lost a client, blew a critical deadline, you were responsible for the reason why your company produced a product that failed, you did not anticipate what your competitors would do and so because of your actions you wreaked havoc on your business, you stained your credibility and you lost the trust and admiration of your team, so what should be your next step?
Say, “I am sorry?” The sad news is that a global study by learning and consultancy company, The Forum Corporation, found that only 19 percent of leaders apologize on a regular basis because they fear it will make them look incompetent or weak. And so many of the leaders tend to cover up the problem, ignore it, and worst, deny that the problem exists or that they were the source of the problem. Which is simply ridiculous!
In my leadership program, I talked about the need for leaders to own what they have done wrong and apologize for it. One young marketing executive interrupted me and said, “But Francis, you are training leaders and I cannot understand why you are telling us to say, ‘I am sorry!’ Saying sorry is a sign of weakness that leaders cannot afford.” I looked at the young person and gently said, “But it takes more guts, courage, character and strength to say I am sorry.” To which the entire class of participants agreed, but left the young marketing executive perplexed and dumbfounded.
In my own personal analysis, it looks like the young executive has been binging on the Netflix series “House of Cards,” and apparently Frank Underwood must have been his role model.
Apologizing may reveal the fact that you are far from perfect, but it also builds trust and shows that you are being accountable for your actions and you have the confidence to use your mistake as a learning experience that can bring you future growth. Here is the key, the leader who does this begins to build a culture of transparency and trust and the members of the team will behave the same way.
Here are a few ideas on what you should do after a major screw-up (or even a minor one for that matter) after you have admitted your fault and offered an apology:
1. TAKE CONTROL AND OFFER REASSURANCE.
Your people may have freaked out and you have let your team down while they are trying to put out fires. There will be a high level of sudden mistrust. They worry that even their careers would be on the line.
As a leader this is when you need to put in extra hours, re-establish their sense of security. Schedule more oneon-ones with those who seek it and offer email updates on the repair work that is being done. Yes, this is crisis management and you need to show that as a leader, you are in control. Give progress reports, and once stability is regained then the trust returns, but don’t rush it as this entails time.
2. PROCESS AND EXTRACT THE LESSONS.
All the platitudes of “Do not be afraid of failure…” Or the clichés being mouthed by “motivational speakers” and some leaders about “fail fast, succeed sooner” is not being put to a test.
In my talks I would put it this way, “Do not lose the lesson even if you lose.” Get your team to process the experience and find out the reasons why there was a screw up and do not provide room for blame. This is a good time to inspire your people again and pound in the lesson that an honest mistake becomes a valuable lesson for growth and fertilizes future successes.
3. MOVE FORWARD.
As the famous character “Rafiki” in the movie Lion King would say, “Ah… the past may hurt, but you can either run from it or learn from it…” So now that you are learning, you still need to move on and attain progress.
You have apologized, and you have learned the lessons, so the faster you can repair the damage and achieve more progress, the faster your people would move too.
Saying “I am sorry” is not a magical chant that would put back everything in its rightful place, but it starts the process of recovery and restoration. The truth is that your clients, your top bosses, investors and the rest of the employees do not really care how penitent you are, but what they want is that you show progress. They want the mess cleared and cleaned so that everyone is poised for a better future.
(Attend this leadership conference as Francis Kong teams up with Ken Blachard and John Maxwell’s accredited industry practitioners Gina Cruz and Marj Villanueva in an afternoon learning event entitled: “Leadership Excellence -The Winning Edge! On March 2 at CITY CLUB at Alphaland Makati. For registration and inquiries contact Jacque at 0999 7283971 or Mary at 0917 8173736 or call Inspire-UN Leadership Consultancy Inc. 777 6038)