Anyone with a fair amount of life experience to their name has probably already had this frustrating interaction at some point. Whether you’re talking with a family member, a person at school or someone, perhaps even a manager at work, a mistake is made. You know it’s a mistake. The person that made the mistake is also aware of it. However, rather than admitting that a mistake is made, the other person tries to hide it, lies about it, places the blame on you, or otherwise finds some way to deflect the fact that something unplanned and unwelcome has happened, and they had nothing to do with it, even though you both know that really isn’t the case.
If you’ve ever been in this position of frustration, you have to stop and ask yourself, especially if you want to be a compassionate leader, “Have I ever done this to the people I interact with?” And if the answer is “yes,” this is something that you can do something about.
Pride Is Destabilizing
We all would like to think that we are intelligent, competent professionals. We’d like to think we are capable of generosity, patience, and compassion. Fortunately, in most cases, this is true! However, even with all of these qualities, that does not also mean we are perfect. We may do the wrong thing from time to time, or say the wrong thing, or make the wrong choice, and that’s fine. That is a natural part of living. Mistakes are as fundamental to human experience as breathing.
Where it becomes harmful is if you do not learn, or grow from those mistakes, but instead pretend they never happened, and expend energy attempting to do so. Even someone that is striving to be a compassionate leader may make a mistake, and then, in a moment of pride, deflect that, perhaps even think about putting the mistake on someone else, so as to avoid the embarrassment of making an error.
Painful Growth
Taking the alternate path, making a mistake and honestly admitting it, to yourself and to others, is one of the single most powerful social and management tools you can use. Just imagine how many conflicts that escalated into years of resentment—occasionally even for all time—that could have been avoided and quickly resolved if the person who had made a mistake had simply owned up to it.
By owning a mistake, the negative emotions from people who know you’ve made a mistake that will no longer simmer, build up and create a tense working environment, because you never created that situation in the first place. Instead, you understood that you did something wrong, and immediately defused the situation by being a compassionate leader not just to your employees, but to yourself.
So the next time you make a mistake, be honest with yourself and the others around you. Don’t pretend the mistake didn’t happen, don’t try to blame it on others. Admit the mistake, apologize for it if it is necessary and allow yourself and those you work with to grow from the experience. And don’t be surprised if you gain more respect for your honesty.
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