103: How To Apologize Part 2 - Leadership Team

Hey, my friend Kenny Chapman here again. Welcome back to Leadership In a nutshell, we're cracking the code of the driven mind. Episode 103, how to Apologize, Part 2, and today is about the leadership team. So last week we talked about apologizing to a frontline team or team member. Today I want to focus in on how to apologize when it involves a leader in the business or perh, the entire leadership team, depending on your structure and your own situation in your own business at this moment in time. And so I broke these up into two episodes because I think there's a lot of commonality that you're going to see and witness here, but there's a couple areas that I want to expose on where you may be doing certain things and using, I don't want to say strategy and an apology, but intentionality could be a coachable moment or helping another leader, you know, in a different way than just the straight up vulnerability. So I want to frame this by first off saying that, you know, when it comes to a point of apology, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter who you're apologizing to. It's just your own authenticity, your own, you know, being genuine, your own ownership and some of the things that we talked about last week. But because you're a leader and this is a leadership podcast, I wanted to kind break this up and look at some areas you might go a little bit deeper and share a little bit more with a specific leader or your leadership team than you might for a frontline team member, because it's certain levels of understanding, not that you're smarter or better than a frontline team member. It's just that sometimes leaders have a different exposure and a different overall understanding of some of the different working components. All any of us care about is what directly affects us. And a frontline team member has less things that directly affect them per se, from their perspective than perhaps a leader in the business. And so I kind of want to frame that and head into today with that kind of in the forefront of your mind. So I'm also going to share six different steps to this process, as I did last week. First three are going to be very, very similar, and then we're going to kind of shift a little bit moving forward there. So as kind of a reminder, but also the way to apologize, if you didn't listen into last week, I would encourage you to do so. And if you're new to the podcast and just are jumping in this week, welcome. Congratulations. Thanks for being here. We're talking about apologizing to a leader. Specifically last week we talked about Frontline. So here we go. Number one, understand your why. That's an internal thing. And you want to understand what is it that you know, why you feel this? Because there's generally going to be some sort of a disruption, discomfort, uneasiness, something just isn't resonating as if effective as you would like it to. You know, something along those lines, but really understand what it is. And if you need to apologize, really, you know, the overall goal of an apology to me is to set everybody free. One is to set whoever it was that you quote, wronged or didn't act in congruency, to set them free to understanding another level of who you are, but also setting ourselves free when we make a, quote, mistake, which I believe is learning opportunity. The world calls them mistakes, I believe it's a learning event, the world calls them problems. I believe it's an education opportunity. I just, you know, I'm not an ostrich in the sand kind of a person, but I'm a person who chooses happiness every single day and as many moments of every day as I possibly can. And that's a simple choice. And as soon as you choose happiness that you can't follow it with, but. Or if, and the same is with an apology, you can't apologize, say, well, I'm sorry, but. Or I'm sorry I did this, because whatever that is. And so let's take a step back and really understand where is that disconnect of why you want to apologize, why you might have said what you said, done what you've done, acted the way you acted. Just really understand for yourself what that why is. Okay? And then step two, we're going to go into that intention. Set an intention. Both of these 1 and 2 are internal. Understanding your why, setting your intention, those are both internal. So if I'm going to have a conversation, if you know you're in a remote situation, you might have a video call, you might, you know, whatever that kind of platform is for this. Set the intention of how you want to feel when this interaction is over and how you hope they feel when this interaction is over. And again, you can't control how they're going to feel, how they're going to respond, if they're going to set you free or not. And remember, that's largely about them. This is all about everybody really coming from their own perspective. So you set an intention of what this means to you and how you want to feel when it's over and hopefully how they can feel as well. But they're on their own walk and journey and you're just doing the best that you can as they are as well. So, one, understand your why. Two, set your intention. Three, take full responsibility. Take full ownership of whatever it was, regardless of what it was, regardless of when it happened, regardless of why it happened. I don't care if you've had a few drinks and you think back about your life. And I think about all the years I spent drinking, smoking weed, all the different things that I used to try to calm my driven mind. Now, maybe I'm doing this podcast because this is some of my therapy, right? But it's funny because I call it the leadership in a nutshell, how we're really working on controlling and helping understand the driven mind. And I think I used all these chemicals and different things trying to control my driven mind. And then what was interesting is if I might drink or smoke, I let my guard down a little bit, meaning I relax a little bit, and then I might say something dumb or I might say something that's not incongruency. And maybe you've done the same. And so no matter what it is or what the platform was or why, you take full ownership and. Well, and I guess I'll stay on that point for a moment. Maybe I'm the only one, but have you ever had to apologize for something that you don't remember? I could probably record one for those of you that still drink a lot on certain occasions, or maybe go into the blackout phases of drinking, that you wake up the next day and your spouse or a team member or a friend tells you something you said or did. And now in today's world, with video like, oh my God, what was I thinking? And you might not even remember it. But in the important thing here, number three is you got to take ownership. Doesn't matter. I don't care if it was your birthday. I don't care if it was New Year's Eve or St. Patty's Day or whatever it was. It's time to take ownership of what you did. I want to honor and have empathy for your own walk, your own pain, your own conditioning that may have created or led up to creating whatever it is that you said or did. But hey, it is what it is. It's yours. You said it. You did it. Time to own it. Okay, then we move to number four. And again, we're talking about leadership team here today. So you understand, you set your intention, you take ownership, and now I want you to, in number four, share deep from the heart. Share deep from the heart. Maybe the possible reasons of why this may have taken place. This is where a little bit different than with the frontline apology, with a leadership apology. You owe them a little bit bit more. And what I mean by that is they're really rallying. They're carrying your vision and your, your goal and your, your overall, you know, purpose in life in a way as a leader. They're rallying around you. And if, if you wronged them in some way and you, you didn't honor them in some way, you got to go a little deeper here and really share some. It might not be opening a little bit of pain in your own heart for some of the why this might have happened or how this might have have shown up and really get, get clear and share. You know, hey, I, I don't know where this came from, but I, as I've thought about and I meditated on and I thought, you know, a little bit deeper. I journaled about it, whatever it is. However you, you go through reconciling and digesting the events of a day in your life, man, you know, I think about how my dad treated me and I'm not making an excuse by any stretch, but maybe this is why this showed up. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean for that to happen. I'm going to continue to do better. I was doing the best I can. You know, some of that type of stuff where you've got to go deep here, you've got to really share deep. And number five, check in with yourself for the length here. So last week in episode 102, we talked about keeping it brief in step five. Here in step five, when you're working with a leader, I would encourage you to check in. You know, again, you don't want to belabor the point, but you may need to spend a little bit more time on this, you may need to go a little bit deeper with this for either you or them to create some understanding. Now the other thing that I want to touch on here in step five, when you're checking in with yourself is also, is this a possible teachable or coachable moment? So I want you to think about influence and kind of circle of influence. As a leader, how you act is often how you're leaders are going to act. So how you go through this process of, hey, I might be the CEO, I might be the president, I might be the sales manager, I might be whatever your level is in the organization of a manager, like, hey, I messed up here and I want to own that, I want to honor that, I want to share a little bit of why and I want to have a conversation. Because as you go through that, you might be teaching them how to own their stuff when they make a mistake with their team. So don't miss the fact that by you do now, again, this isn't why you're doing it. Don't get me wrong, you're doing this to free the disturbance within yourself and hopefully ease the disturbance or the pain within them. But as a byproduct, Dan Sullivan, my mentor, calls it strategic byproduct of something that you do. Sometimes there's a strategic byproduct in this. It could be how you go about having this conversation. For you, making a mist or effing up might give them a window of how it can be done more effective than how it's done a lot of times by parents, peers, previous experiences in our own lives. Okay, then we go to step number six and we go, you know, final check in. So this is where you've had the conversation. Now you're just kind of checking in and you're looking, you know, if you need to ask for forgiveness, this would be the place if you're looking to, you know, hey, can we, can we set this aside? Can we learn from it? Can we move on? Can you give me another chance? Can you get behind me again? Can you give me an opportunity to earn your trust back? Can you just give me some space in your heart to win you over again, whatever that is. And I'm going to remind you, just like last week when I talked about forgiveness, it could be a little bit different with a leader than a frontline team member. But I want you to realize that when you're asking someone for forgiveness, what you're trying to do is set yourself free. And if they say, yes, I forgive you, then you're willing to forgive yourself. So most of us don't have enough self love in our own repertoire. Most of us have low self esteem and challenges around the way that we've been raised and the way we've brought up. Many of us became leaders in order to show the world and to have some sense of control over our lives and over what's going on in the business and different things like that. And so we realized that like, man, I'm going to beat myself up over this. I really messed up. I hurt somebody, I hurt somebody's feelings. I did something out of congruency, so I better Kick my own butt. Now, that goes back to a reason that I drank and smoked for so many years. Because I was the, you know, what do they say, the judge and the jury for Kenny Chapman? And I would get out the noose and theoretically hang myself when I made mistakes. And then I would, you know, drink to try to take the pain away rather than looking at the situation and understanding like, man, I messed up here, but I'm a good person. I'm doing the best I can. Where did that come from? What's the pain that caused that? Holy smokes. I forgive myself for this. Whether you do or not. Now, I don't say that outwardly, but I want you to understand when people say, oh, will you forgive me? What they're looking for is a yes to forgive themselves. So I'm just a little cautious with the word forgiveness, because if whoever you're asking to forgive you is not in a place of forgiving themselves, they won't be able to forgive you. And then now we're to a lip service thing. They're going to say, probably, yeah, I forgive you. And whether they mean it or not is another thing. So all you're trying to do is get to forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for going through the process and learning what you can from this life lesson anyway. And the better you do that, the better you'll act moving forward in the future. Because you learn the lesson, you're going to keep making what the world calls mistakes over and over again until you learn the lesson. I think God's going to keep on showing you the same challenges, putting you through the same different things. You go back to. I forget the episode off the top of my head when I shared the story of when I took my niece to get ice cream and the whole falling off the double cone. God's not going to entrust you with a double or a triple cone if you can't take care of a single scoop. And that's the same is true here with elevating your decision making and having more challenges and opportunities as you grow your business and scale your team. You got to learn these lessons, and the only way you can learn them is to look them right smack at it, understand it, forgive yourself, share what the why was that might have happened, and continue to move forward. So this is a big episode, and I hope you feel that it's okay to apologize. If you're not quote what the world says, making mistakes, then you're probably not doing much. Action takers make what the world calls them mistakes, and I keep saying that because it's not a mistake ache, it's an activity. You either got a result that you wanted or you didn't. You either acted in congruency or you didn't. You were either in alignment or you weren't. Any of those things happen. And as you continue to evolve your consciousness, they'll happen less and less because you have clearer consciousness. You have conscious clarity. You're thinking through more, you're meditating, you're journaling. You're understanding who you are. Therefore, you make quotes, better decisions. But there's no such thing as a bad decision. You're just making the decision. You need to learn what you need in that process. So episode 103 how to apologize, part 2 understand your why, Set your intention, Take full ownership and responsibility. Then number four share deep from the heart the possible reasons. 5. Check in with yourself. For how long does this go? Is there a teachable moment, a coachable moment that I might be displaying to help them with? And then do your final check in and make sure you can get on board and move forward together. Sometimes time heals wounds, as the old adage says. But I believe healing the wound heals the wound. And that can happen in a moment. That can happen for you in a moment. It doesn't always happen for others in a moment. Do your best. You always are. You will continue to do so. And do me a favor. Make sure you like, review, subscribe, whatever. They keep changing these platforms on me. I know. Just make sure you're engaged in this podcast. Share this with somebody we're here making the world a better place each and every week through leadership. In a nutshell, and I am so grateful to have you as a part of this community. Until we talk, my friend, make it a better than fantastic week and I'll see you next time.