You lost your temper or responded poorly and want to rebuild trust
You handled a moment badly, other people saw it, and what happens afterwards will matter more than the apology.
You were sharp with somebody, spoke over them, said something dismissive in a meeting, or reacted in a way that does not represent how you lead. There are two ways this goes wrong from here. Do too little, and the moment stands as evidence of how you behave. Do too much, and the repair becomes an event in itself, with the other person managing your discomfort on top of their own. What is needed is a brief, plain acknowledgement, and then a run of ordinary days in which you do not do it again.
Presenting symptoms
- The person has been polite and slightly distant with you since.
- You have caught yourself explaining the pressure you were under rather than what you actually did.
- Other people were present, and nobody has mentioned it to you.
Possible causes
- It may have been a single lapse in an otherwise consistent pattern, under a load that has not been looked at.
- It may be the latest of several similar occasions, in which case the moment itself is not the subject.
- You may not actually know how it landed, and may be assuming either more damage or less than there was.
- It may have happened in front of others, so that the audience as well as the individual is part of what needs repairing.
One moment, with one person, and it was out of character.
Your most useful next step: Go to them within a day or two and name what you did rather than how stressed you were. Keep it short, do not ask them to say it was fine, and do not follow it with anything they now have to respond to.
Lead behaviours
Other people saw it, and the room has been careful with you since.
Your most useful next step: Speak to the individual first and privately. Then acknowledge it once, briefly, in the same setting where it happened, without turning it into a discussion. What the room is watching for is whether the standard applies to you as well.
Lead behaviours
You are not sure how it actually landed.
Your most useful next step: Ask the person what it was like from where they were sitting, and then let them answer without softening it for them. You may hear that it mattered more than you thought, or less. Both are worth knowing before you decide what repair is proportionate.
Lead behaviours
It has happened before, more than once.
Your most useful next step: Treat the pattern rather than the incident. Write down what the occasions had in common: the time of day, the type of decision, the particular person, what had happened in the hour before. The repair here is a change to the conditions and to your own habitual response, not an apology.
Lead behaviours
Core behaviours
The repair begins with describing what you did without the mitigation attached. Most failed apologies in schools are accurate accounts of the pressure the leader was under, offered in place of an account of what the leader did.
You are applying to yourself the standard you would apply to anybody else who behaved that way. A leader who holds others to account and explains their own lapses has told the staff exactly how much the standard is worth.
People notice whether leaders hold themselves to the standards they set for everybody else, and whether they repair properly when they fall short of them. A leader who does that makes it possible for colleagues to do the same, which is worth more to a school than the incident cost it.
Two things are needed here rather than one: understanding what conditions produced the response, so it is less likely to recur, and regulating yourself well enough in the repair itself that the other person is not managing your distress as well as their own.
Where the response has recurred, the repair that matters is a change in your own habitual reaction rather than a better apology. That means identifying what the occasions have in common, whether the time of day, the type of decision, the particular person or what preceded them, and building a more reliable pattern around those points. Repeated behaviour erodes the credibility of any acknowledgement that accompanies it, however the acknowledgement was made.
Secondary behaviours
Use this where you do not know how it landed. Asking risks hearing that it mattered more than you assumed, which is precisely why it is worth doing before deciding what is proportionate.
Use this on the pattern rather than the incident. If this is not the first occasion, the honest question is what the occasions have in common, and that question is usually avoided because the answer implicates something structural.
Use this on the weeks afterwards. Being straightforward to deal with, day after day, is what actually restores the relationship, and it does so quietly rather than in a conversation.
A useful first action
Write down what you actually did, in the words you would use if somebody else had done it. If what you write is mostly about the pressure you were under, you are not ready to go and speak to them yet.
Suggested approach
- Write what you did in plain words, without the mitigation, and check whether the account is about your conduct or your circumstances.
- Decide whether this is a single lapse or the latest of several, because the two need different repairs.
- Speak to the person directly and briefly, within a day or two, naming the behaviour rather than explaining it.
- Where others were present, acknowledge it once in the same setting, after you have spoken to the individual.
- Change nothing about how you treat them afterwards except the behaviour itself, and let the weeks that follow do the rest.