Never apologise and never explain.
David Stone
Chief Executive of MRL Consulting Group - the semiconductor recruitment company. Est. 1997.
Leadership for the modern age, or pompousness from a previous age??
I was in a meeting recently with a guy who proudly told me that the mantra by which he lives his life - “Never apologise, never explain”.
And he was then surprised when I said I thought it was one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard in my life.
I just sat there, shaking my head in bewilderment, thinking, “You utterly, utterly, pompous, arrogant ass”. (Well, not ‘ass’, exactly, but this is a family friendly medium and under 18’s may be reading before the 9pm watershed….)
And he then sort of self-defeated his own mantra by explaining, ‘Benjamin Disraeli said it!’. Like I honestly gave a flying fug who’d said it and whether that made it any less ridiculous at all.
Am I missing something obvious here?
If you’re wrong – apologise. Genuinely and with heartfelt compassion. Hold your hands up for your errors and take full responsibility.
If somebody doesn’t understand – explain. In as simple terms necessary to help the other person understand.
In Jim Collins sublime book, From Good to Great, he created the concept of Level 5 Leadership. And the primary differentiator between Level 4 (Effective Leader) and Level 5 (Great Leader) was humility. And I’d suggest that if you never apologise, even when patently wrong, you’ll never possess an ounce of humility. Regardless of what Disraeli, or John Wayne for that matter, may or may not have once said. And in that respect, you'll never move forward. No matter how great you may think you are.
Have I missed something here?
Happy to be shown I'm wrong - but only if you explain why first - in really simplistic terms....
Producer/Director at Gorilla Productions
2 年I've heard that the quote is originally attributed to the Earl of Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, a 16th century English Lord, and politician. The quote, as many things English, was not ever meant to be taken as a literal instruction, void of nuance as we exist today, but rather a sarcastic quip to his political enemies letting them know that he would not let them smell blood in the water on his watch. It's easy to fume over this sort of wit under the modern microscope of do-gooder indignation so common to our era of performance activism but from a poetic perspective, Chesterfield's message to us, through the prism of time, can be read to mean that if we blurt stuff out without thinking, we may be fools, but if we speak deliberately and stand for what we say, and say what we mean, then we'd be remiss to recoil into our shells at the first sign of objection by the mob. Whatever mob is involved at any given time. The fact that nobody in our era is willing to burn at the stake rather than recant shows we may lack the courage of medieval ancestors.
Test Development Engineer at cellXica Ltd
7 年United Airlines took this approach initially and look how well that went.
Senior Test Equipment Engineer
8 年Never explain sounds good, apologizing will help us forget the issue, register the learning and move on.
Leverage NI solutions and open source software to design and build test systems that increase product quality, improve test workflows, and accelerate delivery. | R&D | Production | Cloud | Certified TestStand Architect
8 年"I never explain anything." Mary Poppins
Internet Policy Analyst
8 年Strength is having no fear in making mistakes, and no concern to owning up in making them. Strength is learning from mistakes - learning from your peers in discussing mistakes - to dare to try again. Fear of admitting to mistakes will paralyze you - thats weakness.