The Business Case for Forgiveness: Lessons from Rwanda

Over 128 research studies show a consistent relationship between forgiveness and better physical health. [1] What if we normalized forgiveness at work?

Forgiveness isn’t just good for the person who is forgiven—it is good for everyone. Forgiveness has physical and psychological benefits for both the apologizer and the forgiver. Forgiveness is also associated with better job satisfaction [2] innovation, organizational performance [3], and employee productivity [4]. Most crucially, forgiveness can restore our sense of humanness [5].

It is unlikely that any leader made it through the pandemic without the need of forgiveness for at least something. I haven’t met one yet, myself included.

So many unknowns, rapidly changing information, impossible trade-offs and decisions, morally distressing situations, a vanishing workforce, and extreme resource constraints surely led to decisions that may have caused unintentional harm. Because we know that leaders were experiencing a high degree of psychological distress and fear themselves [6], their brains were not optimized for ideal decision-making. Even if they were, difficult trade-offs had to be made.

Despite the impossibility of the situation, the damage still occurred. If the leader’s response is to move on and hope nobody noticed, it has the potential to morph from a perception of suboptimal decision-making to a sense of betrayal. Forgiveness provides an antidote.

Most people don’t want to harbor bitterness in their hearts toward their colleagues, leaders, or organizations. Grudges are exhausting. We want to forgive, but it starts with an apology.

These quotes from our research make the point:

“The initial rollout was flawed, which is defensible. What is indefensible is that administration did not admit this and did not apologize.”- Physician 2021

“An apology by the (organization) as a whole at least saying we could have done better.” (2022)

Is this feasible in the modern workplace? Rwanda can give us some ideas…

I spent the summer after college working on a university microfinance project on coffee plantations in Rwanda before starting my full-time job in the fall. It was 2007, and the scars of the massive genocide in 1994 were still visible. The Tutsi genocide resulted in the murder of around 800,000 people in the span of 100 days in a country the size of Maryland. Every family in the country was affected—either from having participated in or supporting the killing or losing a loved one because of it. Where I expected to see only lingering devastation, I also saw hope and reconciliation.

One morning, I observed two women on the plantation sorting coffee beans and then sitting down side-by-side to share a snack, laughing together. My colleague explained that both of the women were essentially widows, but for different reasons. One because her husband was killed, and one because her husband was in prison for participating in the killings. They supported each other and worked side-by-side to survive.?This left me with the sense that if they can reconcile and forgive, then no situation is hopeless for repair.

If they can do it, we can do it. It will take courage and humility. All forgiveness starts with an apology.

Don’t let the possibility of shame rob you of the benefits of asking for forgiveness and being forgiven.

As we recover from the collective challenges of the pandemic, I hope we will make apologizing and forgiving part of our daily work.

Lead Well,

Katherine

Katherine A. Meese, PhD

Don’t take it from me: Here’s the research.

[1] Lee, Y.-R. and R.D. Enright, A meta-analysis of the association between forgiveness of others and physical health.

[2] Radulovic, A.B., et al., Forgiveness in leader–member exchange relationships: Mediating and moderating mechanisms.

[3]??Dominguez-Escrig, E., et al., Improving performance through leaders' forgiveness: the mediating role of radical innovation.

[4]?Toussaint, L., et al., Forgiveness working: Forgiveness, health, and productivity in the workplace.

[5] Schumann, K. and G.M. Walton, Rehumanizing the self after victimization: The roles of forgiveness versus revenge.

[6] Katherine A. Meese, Ph.D?Alejandra María Colón López, Ph.D.?Jasvinder Md?Burkholder, Greer A. MD?David Rogers?Healthcare is a Team Sport: Stress, Resilience, and Correlates of Well-Being Among Health System Employees in a Crisis.

For more on this, check out my upcoming book with?Quint Studer?called The Human Margin: Building Foundations of Trust.

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UAB Department of Health Services Administration?University of Alabama at Birmingham?UAB Medicine Office of Wellness