Leadership requires a great deal of compassion. When you’re in a leadership role, you’re forced to look at others in a critical light, especially when you’re managing groups of people. You’re evaluating other people’s performance, contributions to team efforts, etc.
When managers and leaders are working with team members, it’s important to remember that those other people are human. They’re goingto make mistakes, they’re going to say things out of line and they may even act in ways that make you feel like they’re sabotaging the project, or the team, or even trying to upset you personally in some way.
At the end of the day, if we remember that those other people are human beings with their own pasts, their own personal issues, frailties and struggles, we’ll remember that they will inevitably do things that we’re unhappy with.
This is why forgiveness is one of the key components to good leadership and management.
When we’re able to forgive mistakes and allow people to have a second chance, we enable them to perform better. We show them that we have faith in their ability to become better team members, but we’re also gifting them with the space to fulfill their potential to be the best they can be.
Everybody makes mistakes.
If people were robots, they would always do what they’re told, they wouldn’t speak back or have their own ideas about how things should happen. Their personal lives wouldn’t impact them at the office, their past experiences wouldn’t affect their job performance, and their old programming wouldn’t interfere with their work.
That’s why it’s incredibly important for leaders to think about this key “feminine” leadership attribute — forgiveness — and how that can hold greater presence within the workplace.
Feminine leadership attributes are those of empathy, collaboration, cooperation, and working with the individual’s soft skill. Forgiveness is one of the most important of these to cultivate, and there are five key ways to do so.
Ways To Work With Forgiveness
1. Understand the person’s true intentions. Why did the person do what they did and how was the error made? Ask them about what happened and have a real conversation about it. A lot of the time, assumptions are made about how a situation has unfolded. You’re working fast, there’s a lot going on, and you might assume things about why someone has done something or behaved a certain way. Ask rather than assume.
2. Keep in mind that for the most part, people are good at heart. When you remember the good in them, you’ll usually see that whatever happened was really just a mistake. It’s very rare that people will err maliciously or intentionally. If you start to see a pattern emerge, you can revisit the individual’s performance to see where else this behavior is manifesting and then have a conversation to address it. But for the most part, people don’t do things intentionally to hurt others.
3. Really think about all the good things that person does. If you focus on the good aspects and all the positive things that they do, it’ll be easier to forgive them for the one time they did mess up.
4. Have a sincere conversation with the person. Dissect what the issue was, such as what other supports were required and what other things they might have needed in order to perform successfully.
5. Remember to have compassion for yourself as well. While you’re managing other people and looking at them in a critical light, you’re undoubtedly putting yourself under a microscope as well. There may be several areas in which you need forgiveness and compassion, and if you can approach your own difficulties with gentleness, it’ll be easier for you to forgive others as well.
Forgiveness is something that needs to be put into practice within ourselves, especially as leaders and managers growing both our teams and our influence on others. If we start harboring old resentments, it will hinder our own performance as well.
Practicing forgiveness for yourself and for others will allow you to be the best team leader and manager possible.