The Leadership Excuse
Have you ever upset or hurt someone and then found yourself saying ‘ Sorry but I didn’t mean to hurt you’? I know I have and I’ve heard the excuse from many leaders as well when things have gone pear- shaped in the office.
In certain situations, there can be a mismatch between your intention and your impact as a leader.
Let me share with you a common example that I've seen in a number of workplaces over recent years. The example is where a long-standing much-loved employee, let’s call him Jo, has decided to leave the organisation. A decision needs to be made by his leader around how to communicate Jo’s resignation to the rest of the company. The leader’s intention is to make her people feel safe, to keep them focussed on their work and not to make any unfounded assumptions about why Jo is leaving and the current state of the organisation. So, the leader decides to let Jo go quietly and not communicate anything outside of the immediate team.
But what’s the impact?
Once people find out that Jo has left and they weren't told about it, or given the opportunity to say goodbye, they feel a sense of dishonesty and distrust. They don’t feel safe anymore. They feel vulnerable. They are second guessing the reason why Jo has left. In fact, the result is exactly what the leader was trying to avoid. The exact opposite of their intention. This leaves the leader feeling disheartened, when their very best intentions resulted in a negative impact on their people.
So as a leader how can you make sure your intention matches your impact?
When you’re making big decisions, and often these are around what and how you communication, you can follow these steps:
1. Examine your intention.
Get really clear on what you want the outcome to be. Is your intention to inform, include, motivate, inspire, influence or connect your people? Leaders who I work with always want the best for their people. They don't intend to peeve them off, make them feel bad about themselves, disengage them or make them feel angry. In fact, just the opposite. Once you’ve got clear on your intention, next is to think about your method.
2. Consider all your options.
Ask yourself - What methods can I use to make sure I get the result I want? This can be tough to do, because as a leader you're busy, you’ve got a lot going on. Just the sheer pace of business these days means that you’re making decisions on the fly, and possibly not having the time or the headspace to really consider, “Okay, if I do this, what's actually going to be the impact, and what might be the unintended consequences?”
3. Seek feedback.
Once you’ve taken action, check-in with your people. Ask them: What was their take-away? How did the meeting, email, etc make them feel? Do they have any questions or concerns?
4. Apologise if necessary.
If you find out that you have unintentionally offended or hurt someone, take the time to apologise. As a leader it’s important that you take responsibility. Apologising freely, without excuses, requires a good deal of courage. It may not feel comfortable to acknowledge that something you've done has caused others harm or inconvenience, but it’s necessary if you want to build your relationships.
An apology leads to empathy and empathy leads to forgiveness.*
5. Continually build trust.
As a leader, if you've built trust and connection, then your people will forgive you for your mistakes and wrong decisions. They will know that your intention was a good one, even if your execution didn’t quite hit the mark. Everyone makes mistakes. If you stuff things up once or twice, they’ll forgive you, just don’t make a habit of it.
Brittany’s ‘Oops I did it again’ can only be played so many times!
As leaders, we want our people to thrive in our teams, to love what they do and to feel valued for their contribution. Before making big decisions, give yourself some space to work through exactly what you want to achieve and the best possible way to get it right.
Midja