To apologize or not to apologize. That question has a supervisor stumped because her employee is upset, disappointed, angry, with her and put it in writing to her and copied others. She thinks the employee was performing poorly and let him know it. She doesn’t think she did anything wrong and has dug her heels in about apologizing, even though her boss asked her to do it.
When I was asked what advice I might offer a supervisor in this situation, my first thought, not knowing details of the situation, was that good leadership is about shifting gears to figure out how to work with someone, especially a person we don’t like working with. Good leadership is about owning our impact on others, even if that impact was not intentional.
It led me to think about attributes of good leaders. Here are some, in no particular order.
They figure out what their people need to do their best and grow, and they adjust their approach to help their people move forward.
They are interested in knowing their people, their values and their aspirations.
They are clear about what they value and communicate it to their people consistently in words and actions.
They intentionally seek others’ perspective to try to better understand others and themselves.
They are in a continual growth mode because they know leadership is a dynamic role, ever-changing as the people and situations change.
They flex to work with people they do not like or agree with to try to make progress toward the larger goal.
They make mistakes. But they surround themselves with people they trust who will give them candid, objective feedback. They are open to hearing criticism and view it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
They realize that not everyone is a good fit for their role and do what they can to help them either get better in it or find something else.
Good leaders are thoughtful about what has happened and reflect on what could be done better next time.
If the supervisor who dug her heels in has an opportunity to talk with a trusted, objective colleague or coach about what happened and her response to it, she will hopefully see opportunities to shift her approach. How she handles moving forward will be key, because one of the complaints the employee wrote was that she is spiteful. That is not a trait you want in any leader.
