The word forgiveness is not one we hear a lot in business. I believe being forgiving is an essential character trait of a leader. Working with other people is fraught with mistakes, unkind words spoken, misunderstandings and one-ups-man-ship. As a leader we need to learn how to right these wrongs so that we can move on and continue to work well with others.
Christianity teaches a radical approach to forgiveness. The teaching is beautifully depicted in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-31)
A young man insisted his father give him his inheritance now. He took the money and ran literally. After squandering his inheritance and finding himself wallowing in the mud with the pigs, he said to himself, the hired men at my father’s house are better treated than this. I shall return and ask to be a hired man.
What did the father do? Did he give the son a lecture? Did he tell him he can’t come back? Parents, what would you have done? I know I would have been so angry that a long lecture and great acts of payback would have been required. I certainly would have acted more like the older brother who became angry and refused to join the celebration.
Instead, while the son was a long way off, the father ran to him, threw his arms around him, kissed and celebrated, with a gift of a ring and a fatted calf, his lost son’s return.
The Power of this Approach
Here’s what so revolutionary. When two people are at odds with each other, regardless of who is at fault, it is as if they have turned their backs on each other. What Christianity teaches is that the hurt party needs to turn back around and be ready to forgive, with their arms outstretched (a long way off), so that when the aggrieving party turns around to ask for forgiveness (repents), they see that it is already being offered!
Here’s the power in this approach to forgiveness from the prodigal son perspective. In the last few years I have had two very sorrowful experiences where I, the prodigal son turned around to ask forgiveness and was not greeted by a someone that had already forgiven me. In both cases, it was not my intention to hurt the other person and I was actually surprised that what I did had been perceived as hurtful. But alas, that is not the point, I did hurt the person. When I asked what I could do to repair the hurt I caused, one person said, “I don’t think there is anything you can do to repair this.” The other person said, “It sounds like you want to just sweep this under the rug, and I can’t tolerate that.”
When I turned around to ask for forgiveness, it was as if the person I offended had their back towards me and had no intention of ever turning around. How then can we ever move forward to repair the hurt in the relationship?
Reconciliation vs. Retribution
I know in both cases that asking for forgiveness was only the first step in my repentance. I know that as I am given forgiveness, I must offer reconciliation - acts of love I must do to repair the trust I had damaged. I suspect the prodigal son had a lot of work ahead of him, but the work began with a celebration of the fact that the son that I thought was dead, is alive. The relationship that I thought was broken, will be repaired.
Let’s not confuse reconciliation with retribution. Retribution is a pay-back; an eye for an eye. Reconciliation is an act of love for another. An act that wants to repair what was damaged. And here’s where our FeedForward skills come in. Having a conversation with the person not only about forgiving, but also how we might move forward.
“...here also forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart - every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.)”
