How to apologize (at work)
You screwed up.
You snapped at a colleague who didn't deliver her work on time. Or you didn't provide the help or attention your co-worker was seeking when they needed you. Or maybe you let your mood of the moment taint the enthusiasm of a team member presenting her work to you.
In this post, I talk about apologizing at work. How to do it properly, and, as managers, what is the essential step after that.
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Picture this: it's Thursday morning, eight o'clock. You just arrived at work and didn't have the time to drink your coffee yet.
Your team member enters your office. She's excited to tell you, her manager, about her great idea or a new initiative that could improve the business. She's been thinking about it for a few days, getting ready to pitch it to you. She hopes you'll back her up.
Right after exchanging some courtesies, she shares the outline of her idea with you. She talks fast, and she's smiling.
But you are tired. Your four-month-old wasn't interested in letting you sleep last night. And you grumbled something like, "yeah, that's interesting, but this is not a priority right now."
Ouch. That's a great way to destroy someone's motivation and to impact your relationship with her negatively.
But don't beat yourself up. We all have our bad moments. I'm sure you've experienced being on the receiving end of something similar recently.
The difference between a good leader and a bad one doesn't lie in their ability to prevent that kind of mishaps from happening altogether.
It is in learning to recognize them quickly and apologize properly and right away before it has the time to degrade the relationship.
To make amends for our misbehavior, we need to offer a sincere apology that always opens with "I'm sorry."
To make amends for our misbehavior, we need to offer a sincere apology that always opens with "I'm sorry." But we should not stop there.
What are we sorry for? We ought to state it clearly. That ensures that the other person knows what we are sorry for accurately.
We then follow by explaining why we were wrong. Own the mistake and the responsibility for the situation.
By the way, this is the way to make a proper apology to anyone. Not just a subordinate. Not only at work. But at work, after apologizing, we need to put back our leader's hat and go one step further.
If we snapped at our colleague in front of an audience, letting them know that we were wrong is an excellent idea. If we came to understand it, they noticed it right away. Believe me.
If, as in our little story, we didn't evaluate correctly an idea brought to us by a team member, we ask her for a second chance to listen to her pitch.
When I was a business school student, I remember the teacher telling us of the two attributes of a great manager: "Fair and benevolent." I try to remember these often, as they are wise words to live by. To me, they suggest that being a great manager equals being a good human being, which implies acknowledging our mistakes and apologizing.
Takeaways:
- Catch yourself fast after miscommunicating
- Apologize even faster
- A sincere apology starts with "I'm sorry," followed by an acknowledgment of our mistake
- As managers, we can't stop at the excuse. We have to try and repair our error.