The answer, hands down, is trust. An abundance of studies by research institutes, universities, and real-life management experiences all point to this 5-letter word as the critical fulcrum as to whether employees stay with a manager or leave him. Yet a typical management curriculum includes communication, feedback, recognition, career coaching…with the assumption that doing these things leads to building trust. But some managers can be pretty good at these skills but still have flaws in their behavior that lead to their team’s not trusting them. The good news is that trust is usually about behaviors versus character. We are good people who do some insensitive things. And since none of us are immune from doing things at work we later regret, an essential skill for building trust is apologizing.
Where is the fine line between “good” apologies and “bad” apologies? It’s about taking full responsibility in a credible way. One example is Toyota executives who have apologized with no excuses for their recalls and did so with passion I could feel. Another is former Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin who apologized publicly for the decision to merge with AOL. These apologies felt sincere and are far more effective than those who apologize with words like “I’m sorry you misunderstood what I said”, or worse, those who apologize after getting caught doing something they really don’t regret.
The message for managers…and us…is clear. Learn to look someone in the eye and say “I’m sorry I did this because I know how it impacted you and I’ll never do it again”. That’s simple, highly effective, and very difficult for some of us.
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