Why Leaders Should Always Be First To Repair
Yesterday I had some exciting news come to me via direct message. Excited, I sent screenshots to my inner circle – LOOK AT THIS (MAYBE) WONDERFUL THING! A couple people were appropriately enthused, but one of my closest, not to mention longest friends responded unfavorably. She described what she saw as a threat, a scam, or something otherwise nefarious and went on at length about why it was unrealistic to think about for myself anyway. As you might imagine I was crushed.
From my perspective, I found something that filled me with some joy and validation. I wanted to share it, and share hope for it. From her perspective, she was being a good friend by being “real” and trying to protect me from being potentially taken advantage of. In the moment I could see that her concerns were valid. I hadn’t processed any of it yet myself, really. Nonetheless, I didn’t want to discuss her concerns. I felt dismissed and put down and I ended the conversation pretty abruptly. I even acknowledged that she might be right, but it just wasn’t the feeling I was looking to share with her then.
Part of the purpose of describing her as a person whom I have a longstanding relationship with is to speak to our history of relationship repair in the past. For many years we both were pretty bad at it. True repair could take days or weeks. It could cycle between resolved and unresolved. In her case, she was sometimes downright unwilling. Things got so tough at one point we didn’t speak for a couple of years, though we did eventually work through those issues. As a result, we’re closer now than we ever were before. We’ve spent the better part of 20 years watching each other change, grow, and hopefully become very good at “relationship”.
Yesterday, though, my feelings were hurt. I had to prepare to try to move past them knowing she meant well but missed the mark. A few minutes later I got a text saying “I think ____ is maybe what happened. If that’s true that must have really hurt your feelings. I saw it this way. I could have been less dismissive.”
Just like that, my heart lightened and I felt I could open up and continue. Thank you for acknowledging that. Yes, that is what happened. I still want you to tell me the truth because what if you’re right? And she was right. It was a scam.
If we had done less work on ourselves, less work on our ability to communicate, I can see now what could have been the kind of situation that put us on two opposite banks of a river. If we both dug our heels into the mud, she could have called me naive and sensitive and I could have called her hateful and rude, and we both could have called it a day. Fortunately, one person opted for repair, and that decision built a bridge back to understanding and peace. I was so impressed with the speed of the fix that I went out of my way to tell her that I saw the extra effort she made to make things right, and that I appreciated it.
That’s my best friend of 17 years; now, think about the effort (or lack thereof) that we put into people who don’t ever acquire anything close to that stature in our lives. A coworker. A customer. A direct report.
Repair skills in relationship are unbelievably underrated. Many people know they should say sorry, and some people say it just to appease the other person. Some people never say it at all. How many people that apologize to us unprompted do we believe? How many people do we think are looking for accountability and growth, versus looking to blow past the discomfort and just move on?
Moving into a leadership role is just as much a daily exercise in relationship management as it is expertise in anything else. It requires patience and care. Managers who skip that investment are often the managers questioning why everyone always seems to have a problem and things are always going wrong. As the one in charge, we get constant reinforcement from superiors that our number-one job is to build. Build momentum, build results, build the toolbox, build the relationship, build build build. Call us Bob, we’re builders.
So Bob, what happens when things get torn down? Fix! Fix fix fix fix fix. Tape, hammer and nails, glue, whatever it takes. Okay, but how? I wasn’t really taught how to fix.
There are a lot of ways this can play out: you can double down by re-communicating expectations, threaten by way of “finding out what happens” if the results aren’t produced, you can ignore people until they decide their problem isn’t worth pursuing, etc. When things go wrong, leaders are typically operating at their lowest capacity for relationship management. They’re under fire from above. They’re agitated, short on time, and pass along the buck until the crisis has passed. Are they ever accountable to what gets said or done during that time? Maybe, but probably not unless someone else brings it up or to their attention.
Take a moment to think about how it would feel to receive a call from someone who’s wronged you and, out of the blue, they apologize. You perhaps didn’t expect it, but you have respect for the decision and vulnerability, right? You feel better, and lighter, right? Isn’t it nice.
How often does that happen?
… Right.
No one likes to be the person that initiates repair because it means we have to acknowledge there’s a problem, and usually means we have to acknowledge that we contributed to it. That takes guts. That risks re-upset. It invites more discomfort. It’s much easier to pick up a broom and lift the edge of the rug.
I was talking to my friend Doug the other day, a colleague of mine in the leadership coaching space, who gave me the name for something I describe frequently, but never knew there was a real title for: The Region Beta Paradox.
The Region Beta Paradox essentially states that people recover more quickly from major distress than minor annoyance, because the former instigates pain-relieving action where the latter is tolerable enough to allow indefinite inaction.
Region Alpha: Terrible. Need the fastest way out.
Region Beta: Frustrating, inconvenient, annoying on minor scales. Causes continued long-term disengagement or dissatisfaction but never quite enough comfort to do something about it.
The result: Unnecessary discomfort and distress stretched over time due to an unwillingness to do something about it now.
On the same thread, think of one conflict that you ignored longer than you should have that didn’t end up worse off for it. Usually, a conflict delayed is a conflict escalated. Region beta facilitates the explosion.
The quicker we’re willing to address conflict and invest in repair, the smoother and easier our environments tend to be. Uglier up front, but with longer-standing ease afterward. Why are we so afraid of it?
Pride can easily disguise itself as principle. “I’m not apologizing because I wasn’t wrong.” We spend a lot of time there when we’re honest. Sometimes, we’re not protecting the truth. Just ego.
As leaders, if we’re called to fix, we’re called to repair. It really is that simple. As leaders, we also must go first. We must create the space, build the trust, and extend the olive branch so that the people who call us “boss” , ironically, know that we’re actually committed to building (and re-building). Funny how that works.
When you’re willing to go first, you communicate that your people matter more than your ego, your relationships matter more than your appearances, and that accountability starts with you. Usually, the leaders who are most concerned with “losing respect” find they’ve gained more of it when they own their humanity.
If you’re never willing to initiate repair, you can watch the following happen to your environment:
- Trust declines
- Engagement drops
- People emotionally withdraw
- Communication becomes transactional
- Innovation slows or halts
In other words, all of the above = unsafe.
Employees don’t forget unresolved conflict, they just adapt around it. With the imbalance of power, that likely stems from the fear of retaliation or losing their job.
We, collectively, can’t help but model the people we’ve been exposed to. Healthy leaders instill healthy relationship practices, and unhealthy leaders instill unhealthy leadership practices. As we rise in our careers, we always know who had the biggest influences on us and why. Sometimes what we learn shoots us to the top; other times, it causes a lot of trouble that has to be overcome.
Extending yourself first toward repair does not automatically mean you’re the only one who’s totally wrong. It can very simply mean you value the relationship over being right. What can that sound like?
- “I think we’ve gotten disconnected.”
- “I’d really like to reset.”
- “I know my actions affected you, even if that wasn’t my intention.”
- “Help me understand your perspective.”
Or, even:
- “I was wrong. Can you forgive me?”
Leadership should create an environment where grace has room to begin.