“Scott, can you tell me why I’m here?” the principal asked me patiently.

Standing in the hallway, awaiting my fate, I protested, “I don’t get it, Mr. McClung. Y’all always tell us we should tell our teachers how we feel about ‘em, and when I finally do, I get in trouble.”

Mr. McClung squatted, shifted his weight to one side, and cocked his head to the other. He smiled slightly and said, “Scott, son, that’s not exactly what we had in mind.”

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Two years in a row, life produced situations where my class had a year-long substitute teacher named Mrs. Hill. My fifth-grade teacher was in a terrible car accident, and my sixth-grade teacher became pregnant and went home for the remainder of the year. Of course, I looked at both situations as inconveniences to me.

I gave poor Mrs. Hill the most challenging time that any fifth and sixth-grader ever gave a teacher. The icing on the awful cake was when I told her I hated her. Because she was a retired teacher who had seen it all and was a really good person, she most likely forgave me immediately. I, on the other hand, still feel terrible about it to this day.

~~~~~~~~~~

We’ve been taught our whole lives to forgive others. As leaders, we have the opportunity to practice forgiveness on a regular basis. The better equipped you become as a leader, hopefully, the better forgiver you become. The more difficult task can oftentimes be forgiving ourselves.

You are going to mess up. You will say and do regretful things. Asking for and offering forgiveness are essential practices in leadership and life.