3 Tips for forgiving as a Manager

Anthony Baker-Smith

Published Apr 9, 2019

For all the managers in this room, a great number of us have encountered some issues in the work place that involves trust in an employee on your team only to be let down. Leading to repercussions from the client such as lost business, frustrations begins to describe feelings that ensue after such an occurrence. As a human, we want to confront that individual directly for letting us down. What better way to relieve the stress than blaming the person directly and letting them know how bad they did! Sadly, that tends to be the wrong track to moving forward. In fact, confronting employees in this manner makes employees defensive and never relieves the original frustration. Defensive employees turn into an enemy instead of a teammate. The slippery slope to a broken team shows itself without warning. By not forgiving, learning, and moving on, much more damage can be done. For that reason, these three tips are imperative.

1. Implement Empathy when possible – Being human comes with mistakes. Right next to mortality, it is not an if but when. Having understanding for mishaps shows your team you are also a human. Yes, there is a point when the same person makes their third mistake this week. They need a different conversation.

2. Track everything – Using precious hours in the day to track activity of employees become troublesome. However, getting angry every time something bad happens never leads to growth of that employee. Anyone working on becoming better at their craft(their job) wants to know the amount of mistakes they made.

3. Breathe – All of the time. Never stop doing this. Do not allow the moment to get the best of you. Stay present and figure the steps needed to keep moving forward. What is in the past already happened.

The fine balance known as leadership will teach you many characteristics about yourself as well as the others. Appreciate the differences that make up your team. Celebrate success and learn from failure. Be stern but also patient. Do these things to be part of the reason why employees want to work for you instead of looking at your competitors for employment.