Accepting corrections

I often ask my leadership seminar participants this question: “Please raise your hand if you ever experienced a mistake committed by your boss when he or she dealt with you?”

Then there would be several hands in the air.

My next question would be this: “Have you ever committed a mistake when you dealt with your people? If so, what did you do about it?”

Schools often invite me to share my own experiences with the parents and these are the same questions I ask them.

“Have you ever experienced a mistake committed by your parents when they dealt with you?” Again, there would be hands in the air. Similarly, the next question is this: “Have you ever committed a mistake when you dealt with your own child?”

But then there would be silence. Just because you are who you are does not mean you are right all the time.

Please read this circulating joke from the Internet.

An old man strode into his doctors office and said, “Doc, my druggist told me to tell you to change my prescription and to check the prescription you’ve been giving Mrs. Smith.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” the doctor shot back. “And since when does a druggist second guess a doctor’s orders?”

The old man answered, “When he found out that I’ve been on birth control pills since February.”

As leaders, how many times have we experienced embarrassment?

We say something stupid, but then we quickly catch on to our mistake. But the more we squirm out of it, the deeper the pit we dig ourselves into.

Here is another circulating story.

Man:  Just look at that young person with the short hair and blue jeans.  Is it a boy or a girl?

Bystander:  It’s a girl.  She’s my daughter.

Man:  Oh, please forgive me, sir.  I had no idea you were her father.

Bystander:  I’m not.  I’m her mother.

Oh no!

We all make mistakes but sometimes our titles or positions give us the mistaken notion that admitting one’s mistake is a sign of weakness. Leaders need credibility to be effective and the best tool to determine credibility is vulnerability, which is the ability to admit one’s weakness. This makes people understand that their leader is honest and above all, human.

I post stuff on my Facebook page daily. One day, I posted this message:

We all have faults and we need to fix them. But if we blame our faults to our nature, then it will never change the nature of our faults. “But that’s just the way I am....” is an obstruction towards personal improvement. Humility is needed to accept one’s fault and improve from there.

A good leader accepts correction. A good leader understands that he or she is not perfect. A good leader works on trustworthiness and inspires people to become better.

Gleaned from my various leadership roles, I learned that people will forgive a leader who committed a mistake as long as he or she is courageous enough to admit and rectify it. What people could not find easy to forgive are leaders who pretend to be perfect.

These are three things important for good leaders to have: competence, humility and the courage to admit mistakes and be corrected.

(Spend two life-transforming days with Francis Kong learning leadership and life skills as he present Level Up Leadership on November 18-19 at EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. For further inquiries, contact Inspire at 09158055910 or call 632-6310912 for details.)