Truth 28. There is no “but” in “I’m sorry”

If you don’t have a reason to apologize to your team every year or so, you’re not trying hard enough. Your company is changing under your feet. Your direct reports are learning new skills and abilities. So it’s safe to assume that you’re also growing in your role. And you’re only human. Put those two elements together and you’ve got yourself the perfect setting for screwing up now and then. Expecting yourself to perform perfectly—with absolutely no leeway for a blunder now and again—creates the perfect setting for screwing up royally.

Being a great manager isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being flawed for all the right reasons. Think of it as good debt versus bad debt. Ideally, no one wants to be in debt at all. But considering the realities of modern life, we’re going to be in debt. And the best discipline is to be in debt in ways that will benefit us in the long run. A little ding now lays the foundation for massive growth within the foreseeable future.

Likewise, given the realities of working in a rapidly changing business environment, you’re going to owe a debt of apology to the people who work for you. So the mistakes you make as a manager should be the kind of mistakes that help you grow as a person or professional. You want them to be the kind of mistakes that will help your entire team grow by learning from your experience. At the very least, they can learn how to apologize in a way that strengthens their team, not undermines it:

• Gain the perspective you need to understand the extent of the damage. When you discover that you’ve blundered, take some time to fully understand its immediate impact and the ripple effects of what you’ve done. Do this quickly, because all this time your team may be seething. But do it thoroughly. Fully understand the impacts up the organization, and, just as important, down the organization throughout your team. This understanding will help you determine exactly whom you should apologize to and what to say that’s relevant to your team.

• Make it a teachable moment for you, but don’t call it a teachable moment when discussing the error with your team. Honest mistakes—especially those made with the best of intentions—are almost always forgivable by your team (unless you’ve somehow been saddled with a toxic team of Machiavellian creeps). But superior, self-righteous, sanctimoniousness behaviors hardly ever are. When you’re facing down a group of people who are truly and rightfully mad at you or wounded by something you’ve done, no one wants to hear you say, “So, people, what can we all learn from this?” All they want to hear is “I’m sorry.”

• Put a period after “I’m sorry,” even if it means you have to choke on the urge to follow up with an excuse or mitigating factor. “I’m sorry, but...” isn’t an apology. It’s weaseling out. It’s also a waste of your breath and valuable company time because you’re going to have to apologize all over again, to set things truly right.

• Apologize publicly when warranted, but that doesn’t let you off the hook for apologizing privately to an individual you’ve inadvertently wronged. Managerial mistakes usually have at least two dimensions: the impact on the team and the business, and the more pointed impact on individuals who have been most directly damaged. The public apology may be humiliating. But the private apology shouldn’t be frightening. (If you really believe that your physical safety is at risk, put this book down and contact HR for guidance.)

• Don’t use private apology to recruit a mole. In your one-on-one apologies, make it about the apology and restoring a healthy, productive relationship with the aggrieved. Resist the temptation to leverage that time to build a secret conduit into learning what the rest of the team is thinking.

• Let ’em talk. Just because you’ve apologized, that doesn’t mean that everything will be magically peachy with your team from that point forward. No matter the size of your error, they’re going to need time to get it out of their system. Use that time to actively restore your relationship with them, and eventually the positive will take the place of any remaining rancor.

Remember: When direct reports apologize to their managers, the subtext is “please don’t fire me.” When managers apologize to their direct reports, the subtext is “please continue to respect me.” In both scenarios, the true value of the apology is working together to return to the equilibrium of collaboration, preferably with some new strength and trust where the broken place used to be.