Jun 23 2009
A Word About Leadership- Part 2: Deal With, Isolate, and Move On- Strategies for Dealing When Things Go Wrong
I have a perfect example from a previous job of an employer who, in my humble opinion, blew it big time on this principle.
The opposite of ‘Deal With, Isolate, and Move On’ is the the quite unfortunate “policy” of ‘Exacerbate and Dwell Upon’.
I was teaching at a school where several students were found to have been doing something the institution deemed inappropriate and a very poor representation of the school. It is hugely debatable whether or not their actions were as bad as many thought, but that is a question far beyond the point I wish to make.
The response began with an indefinite suspension of several students. Teachers were kept in the dark about their own students, forcing them to have to speak to the students’ friends to find out what was happening.
Public meetings were held to address the issue at hand. Some meetings were to weed out more information about the students involved. Others were just to create a public forum where students could discuss their thoughts and feelings with the principal.
Meetings were also held with parents, and an environment was created where this was the talk of not just the school, but the talk of all of Baltimore.
And the worst part of everything was: It just didn’t seem to stop. The school did everything in its power to spread the ‘tsk tsk’ out for months to come.
Exacerbate and Dwell Upon. Making a mountain out of a molehill.
Do mistakes happen? They most certainly do, and always will.
Are some mistakes so severe that they most absolutely cannot be termed “molehills”? Most definitely.
But the good leader knows how to judge between a mistake that’s everyone’s business, and a mistake that needs to stay local.
The good leader, when faced with the inevitable errors and misdeeds that accompany life, knows how to deal with them effectively, knows how to prevent them from becoming public knowledge or reason for disproportionate condemnation, and most importantly, knows how to then say:
An error has occurred. Let’s learn from it, yet move forward like it never happened.
Our errors should never be what destroy us.
They should be what help us to grow and become far better people.
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