Leadership is all about the art of the apology. As a Manager, apologies will be directed towards customers, your boss, and absolutely must go to your employees. Apologizing as a leader towards your staff is very difficult, but a necessary process for the health of your team.
Apologizing to your staff is not a sign of weakness as a leader. Think of all of the authority you have and the decisions that you need to make on a daily basis. As discussed in the post, Identify the Top Management Decision Traps That Anyone Can Fall In To , we all have the ability to make mistakes.
What we do with these errors and how we acknowledge them can set a tone for our whole team.
Apologizing as a leader does not undermine your authority
If done correctly, apologizing as a leader to your team and demonstrating humility is an essential aspect of transformational leadership.
Transformational leadership is that beautiful unicorn of leadership styles according to all of our Leadership Theory 101 courses. This leadership style encompasses individualized consideration, challenging your employees, motivating them through your own actions.
We idealize this leadership style, but it is difficult to perfectly execute as a Manager. As leaders we are not perfect at emotional intelligence, providing perfect feedback to mentor, and influencing your staff to be as great as you.
BUT the easiest place to start, is through your own actions, holding yourself accountable as a leader – and demonstrating to your employees how they should be conducting themselves.
This is why being able to accept when a course of action is not correct, or you dropped the ball on remembering to give them a vacation day, is so important for the overall health of your team. If you want them to be able to admit that they are wrong and take steps to correct it, you need to emulate what you want to see on your team.
So, if transformational leadership is the goal, being able to apologize as a leader to your team is an essential way to get there. The team already knows that you made a mistake, a leader that they can respect will admit it.
Apologizing is good for your employees
The ability to apologize to your team is fundamental in their trust in you as a leader.
According to the Journal of Business Ethics, the level of perceived sincerity from the leadership apology had a positive impact on the staff. They had a higher level of trust, improved satisfaction with their Manager, and higher level of organizational engagement. This was related to apology vs. no apology or an insincere apology.
Apologizing as a leader demonstrates humility – an essential trait of a Transformational style of leadership. A more positive followership was the result of a genuine sincere apology.
When I was a junior staff member, I can recall a Director apologizing to the team. She was very humble and did not make excuses for her wrong decision. She genuinely believed that her original course of action was correct, and admitted when it did not turn out the way she expected it to.
This had a profound effect. A leader admitting without excuses that they were wrong? I can say that this was not the only reason that I would follow her in to the business “unknown”, but it goes to the overall attributes that this highly effective leader had.
To this day, this previous leader and I work at different organizations in the same industry. If she called me up and needed a favor that didn’t hurt my current organization, I would do it without hesitation. This is the lasting effect of a great leader. This loyalty was not only because of an apology. But the negative impact that no apology would have been significant in undermining her relationship with everyone.
Apologizing as a leader is good for you too!
Not only is apologizing as a leader good for the staff, it has positive effects on your psychological well-being.
According to this second article in Journal of Business Ethics, apologizing to your team has several positive effects.
The first is that leaders who apologized to their team had significantly higher well-being and job satisfaction than those leaders who did not apologize. Interestingly, this study decision asked leaders to reflect on a previous error that they made.
The leaders who apologized to their staff felt better about an error (intentional or unintentional) down the road. To make mistakes is human, but being able to feel good about how you as a Manager handled the follow-up with your team makes you feel better about your job performance.
Apologizing as a leader also resulted in higher levels of pride and self-worth in their work. In other words, apologizing did not correlate with the leader feel like less of a person, or a weaker Manager.
Although it may be embarrassing to face your staff to admit that you did not make the right call, it is better for your team to sincerely acknowledge your error and move on.
The art of the apology – How to Apologize as a Leader without undermining your message
Sincerity counts
Some of the aspects that rated positively with a leader apologizing were:
- The leader apologized afterward
- The leader admitted guilt
- The leader expressed regret towards their decision or behavior
- The leader was aware of how their behavior affected others (Emotional Intelligence level)
- The leader acknowledged how hurtful or problematic their behavior was to the individual or team
- The leader tried to make restitution
How to qualify the apology
First and foremost, the worst thing that you can do is ignore the problem completely. Especially if you are going to undermine your staff’s perception of you as a leader when you made a wrong decision or behaved offensively towards your staff.
Much like the above list of research examples, here is the list of actions if you made an unintentional error in judgement:
- Own up to the mistake
- Express regret in the choice that you made
- State the impact of your decision
- Tell the group what you learned as a result, and how you will adjust decision making in the future. This also demonstrates to your staff about how they can change course as well when they make a mistake.
Here is the list of actions if you as a leader make an intentional action towards someone. For instance, you were frustrated and raised your voice.
- Acknowledge the poor decision
- Express regret
- Acknowledge the impact that your action had towards the team or individual and how hurtful it was
- Demonstrate restitution to the team or individual.
Apologies should always have the words of admission in them such as, “I made a mistake”, “I take responsibility” AND “I’m sorry”.
Since sincerity is the single most important part of the apology, you should never say, “I’m sorry, but…”. That is not sincere, it is an excuse. If you do need to make a statement to explain, it should always be followed with, “…and I take responsibility”
Examples of Apologizing as a Leader
Here are some examples of apologies to bring it all together.
If you made a judgement error:
“Hi team. It turns out that I made a mistake in my final decision to use X platform for advertising our new product. This choice resulted in poor performance of the product and as a result, we had a net loss in the last quarter. I realize that my assumptions about the target demographic were incorrect and I have learned some valuable information to bring forward to launch a new campaign. I’m sorry for the decision, and I look forward to your support in correcting our course of action in the future.”
If you caused someone harm:
“I apologize for raising my voice. I was frustrated with another aspect of the work and I took it out on you. That wasn’t appropriate and I’m sorry for my actions.”
Apologizing and admitting to your team is difficult. When you are constructing an apology remember, sincerity is key. The health of your team depends on apologizing as a leader and moving on together.