Why do we apologize? What does it get us? More specifically, why should business leaders put themselves in situations likely to be difficult, humiliating, and even risky? Business leaders are expected to appear strong and competent. Apology appears to put personal and institutional reputations at stake.
Apology is a business skill. And like any other skill, it can be improved with reflection and practice. Leaders should not apologize often or lightly. For a leader to express contrition there needs to be a good, strong reason. Apology Leadership helps business leaders decide when it is appropriate to apologize and how to do it effectively.
Apologizing is more than just good public relations. Something deeper is at work. Corporations are edging toward a higher standard of accountability—forced in part by a deterioration of public trust and wider availability of information in the age of the Internet. Indeed, the revolution in communications and the globalization of business investing are slowly pushing companies to greater transparency.
The intersection of business and ethics is under construction but despite all the landmines concealed on the road to apology, it is the only path to success. Played out on the nation’s front pages and in its courtrooms, the evolving standards of business ethics are being redefined daily. As Martha Stewart, Richard Grasso, the former chief of the New York Stock Exchange, as well as dozens of other executives can testify, the costs for missing the mark are steep.
In each case, the executives could have saved themselves and spared their organizations considerable upheaval with a straightforward action. They could have apologized.
Instead they denied, misled, minimized, obfuscated, and deceived. Instead of contrition and remorse, they offered and indignation. Instead of admitting wrongdoing and offering restitution, they backpedaled and offered cover-up.
In each case, and the dozen or so other business examples described in this book, the executives and the organizations they served would have come out measurably better had they taken a few concrete steps in the direction of apology.
Effective business apology is not a simple practice. Some apologies are better than others, and some apologies are worse than no apology at all.
Apology is almost always less painful and costly than denial. Case after case demonstrates that when organizations screw up, they can mitigate the damage by taking four simple steps: acknowledging that there is a problem; expressing regret or contrition without being defensive or shifting blame; apologizing in clear, direct language; and, if possible, offering restitution. Executives who follow these steps often emerge with their reputations intact. Those that deny are diminished.
Businesses can recover from mistakes more quickly, less painfully, and with reputations intact by dismantling a reflex of denial and embracing a reflex of apology. There are four possible answers to the question of why a leader would endure the discomfort and assume the risk of offering a public apology. Apologies serve four purposes:
The first three purposes are primarily strategic and rooted in self-interest. The last purpose is primarily authentic: An apology is extended because it is the right thing to do. As a general principle, leaders should apologize only if doing so serves one of these purposes.