More than one commentator has compared the gloating, self-satisfied expressions on the faces of guards at Abu Ghraib with the leering grins on picture postcards of lynchings, circulated and widely collected in the early years of the last century. We’re supposed to be the good guys! How can that happen?
One of the most difficult things for most of us to accept is our own capacity to do really rotten things to each other and rationalize almost any action in defensive terms—in terms that emphasize the inhumanity of the victim. From gangster to general, we are able to justify violent acts because others have supposedly done far worse. That same self-justification plays out less dramatically every day in strained relationships at work, in divorce courts, in the abuse and neglect of vulnerable people by caregivers, and in the finger-pointing that seems to occur whenever something goes wrong.
What may differentiate great leaders from the merely good is an ability, in times of great stress, to forgive themselves and, by extension, others. Frederik DeKlerk, as complete a product of the apartheid system as ever existed, found the strength to recognize that the state of self-justification in South Africa had put the country on a very slippery slope. Freeing Nelson Mandela helped to shake off those old bonds. And, Mandela, rather than venting what many would have considered justifiable rage, opted instead for the Truth and Reconciliation process that shone a light on everything and everyone, making forgiveness possible all around and avoiding a bloodbath.
At the Berlin Wall, President Regan once demanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear this wall down!" While much-applauded on this side of the wall, the President’s demand only succeeded because the guy on the other side had the courage to recognize the high cost of Cold War posturing and take the first step away from confrontation. Remarkably, the superpowers found it possible to forgive and forget. For all too brief a time, it seemed that the world might, at last, be at peace.
At my place of employment, everyone with leadership responsibilities (a wide cast of the net indeed) signs a Management Statement in which we commit to a number of values grounded in servant leadership, fostered in openness, and founded in the power of forgiveness, of saying, "I’m sorry." This last value may be the most powerful of them all
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