Center Grove

EXPECTATION #9: BE FORGIVING

People benefit from leaders who forgive, who allow teams to make mistakes, learn, and develop. An unforgiving leader stifles innovation and passion as people live in fear of making mistakes. The biggest barrier to growth, healing, and progress is anger.

1. Trust - You must trust those you work with and those that work for you.  If you lack trust in others it will show and others will lack trust in you.  “Me, I’m Dishonest, and you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest.  Honestly, It’s the honest ones you have to watch out for.” – Captain Jack Sparrow
   
   
2. You forgive... and more importantly, you forget - When an employee makes a mistake -- especially a major mistake -- it's easy to forever view that employee through the perspective of that mistake.  Great bosses are able to step back, set aside a mistake, and think about the whole employee. If you're a phenomenal boss, you are also able to forget that mistake because you know that viewing any employee through the lens of one incident may forever impact how you treat that employee. (And you know the employee will be able to tell.)
   
   
3. Look past the action to understand the motivation - Sometimes employees make mistakes or simply do the wrong thing. Sometimes they take over projects or roles without approval or justification. Sometimes they jockey for position, play political games, or ignore company objectives in pursuit of personal goals. When that happens, it's easy to assume they don't listen or don't care. But almost always there's a deeper reason: They feel stifled, they feel they have no control, they feel marginalized or frustrated -- or maybe they are just trying to find a sense of meaning in their work that pay rates and titles can never provide. Effective bosses deal with actions. A truly great boss searches for the underlying issues that, when overcome, lead to a much bigger change for the better.
   
   
4. Allow employees to learn their own lessons - It's easy for a boss to debrief an employee and, like a parent talking to her child, turn a teachable moment into a lesson learned. It's a lot harder to let people learn their own lessons, even though the lessons we learn on our own are the lessons we remember forever. Phenomenal bosses don't scold or dictate; they work together with an employee to figure out what happened and what to do to correct the mistake. They help find a better way, not a disciplinary way. After all, great employees don't need to be scolded or reprimanded. They know what they did wrong. That's why you know that sometimes staying silent is the best way to ensure they remember.
   
   
5. The forgiving leader has a patient commitment - to wait for the right day to deal with difficulties and the right time to talk about them and a gentle response, which understands that often “hurt people hurt people.” and finally Self-controlled—deciding ahead of time how to respond when conflict arises. 

Credits:

• Forgiveness - Forgiveness of Others is a Skill We Can Develop and Strengthen.
• Building on her own lifetime experiences with forgiveness, Dr. Shawne Duperon founded the Project Forgive Foundation to teach leaders about the importance of incorporating forgiveness into organizations and leadership.