At the heart of sustaining highly effective relationships is the skill of expressing an artful apology. There are various excuses people give for refusing to apologize for inappropriate, disrespectful, rude, and a host of other more toxic behaviours. Whatever the fundamental driver in your own life for withholding an apology for your inappropriate behaviour, you will never be able to sustain highly effective relationships among peers and subordinates, engendering their support and engagement in their work, unless you develop the behavioural and moral skill of an effective apology. And we all need, or will need at some point in our career, the knack of getting a professional apology right.
An artful apology contains three necessary and sufficient elements. Learn them in this order and do not vary from this pattern to express your regret and remorse for ineffective behaviour.
1. I was wrong – expresses your acknowledgement of your behaviour that was inappropriate and harmful to the legitimate needs of others.
2. I am sorry – expresses regret for the harm you caused and a willingness to commit to not doing so in the future
3. Will you forgive me – expresses your desire to enter back into a functional relationship with the other person and you are inviting them to do so by offering them the opportunity to provide their forgiveness for your behavioural lapse.
It is monumentally difficult for most people to express regret for their inappropriate at best and toxic, dysfunctional behaviour at worst. It requires a unique self-awareness, a tremendous amount of reflection, and a lot of practice – but it is a skill that as a leader, we must be proficient at. Whatever the fundamental driver, whether you are the CEO, or the new hire in the mail room, such a refusal perpetuates dysfunctional relationships and wreaks havoc in workplace engagement, productivity, and performance.
By examining the nature of relationships in your organization you gain understanding as to the value and the power effective and functional relationships among key leaders and their teams have on creating a performance driven culture. Teach and deploy the behaviour competencies throughout your organization, link them to your strategic objectives, and you will not only achieve a performance driven culture, you will become a peak performing organization.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.