To be a fully present leader, learn to Forgive yourself

As driven professionals, we take pride in our work. And, when things don’t go perfectly, we are hard on ourselves,” How could I have made that error?” As a member of FedEx’s Long-Range Planning Committee for ten years, I attended a four-hour meeting chaired by Fred Smith, Chairman and CEO, every third Tuesday of the month.?

My group designed and presented global plans for future package sorting hub locations and sizes to handle the forecasted business volume. In one meeting, I presented the plans for the Memphis Hub, FedEx’s central hub. The day before the meeting, Karl, Memphis hub operation’s vice president, called me and insisted that we add a specific requirement to our design. I reluctantly agreed even though we did not have time to collect and analyze the data supporting this requirement.

I could satisfactorily answer all of Fred’s questions except his last question about the justification for the additional requirement. I did not have the data or analysis to share with him. The meeting did not end well. More than Fred or my immediate boss, I was unhappy and mad at myself for putting myself and the team in this position. This incident bothered me for weeks. What happens when we are angry? Part of our mental energy and capacity is tied up, stopping us from being fully present for people or creative thinking. In my ‘Leadership Excellence and Balanced Life’ workshops, people share the guilt or regret of a mistake, on or off the job, they made years ago. To be a fully present leader, we must learn to forgive ourselves.

“Self-forgiveness sets me free from the guilt of mishandled situations. I am not bad or wrong. I did the best I knew how at the time. It does no good to hang on to resentments against myself. Mistakes are part of life’s journey. Self-forgiveness allows me to acknowledge and learn from them, forgive myself, and move on. The freedom that comes from self-acceptance motivates me to keep it up.”?Jane Beach, Science of Mind, February 2023