Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

Leadership lessons I learned from my seat on the bench #15

Can you ever pay for your sins?

Ahh, now that is a good question. In the many years of writing this blog, this is perhaps the best question ever asked. I don’t think there is a simple answer. Please think long and hard. I also encourage you to enter some discussions with your colleagues about this question and it will surprise you where that discussion leads.

What do I mean by this? Here is a good example that has reared its head for probably the past twenty years. A young person, let’s say at the age of 20, says some racist rants that are captured by the police, resulting in a minor disturbance charge. However, it made the newspapers. The young person attends college and completes all teacher licensing tests and teacher requirements. This person is criminally cleared by all public agencies and is granted a state teacher credential/ license. Of course, I do not condone his comments, nor do I accept the excuse of drunkenness. But I am all about forgiveness and redemption.

This young person ultimately lands a teaching job and proves to be a pretty good teacher. He completes his next educational degree and passes all licenses to be a building principal / vice principal. This person applies for an administrative job and passes through the process and is offered the job. Hold on now. Through the vetting process, the episode from years ago comes out, and the school withdraws the offer of an administrative job. Scenarios like this happen several more times. His career is slipping by and he cannot seem to land that administrative job.

Has he paid for his mistakes?

At one time, I was perhaps too quick to forgive the young man and use perhaps a lame rationale that he was young, immature and just stupid. I felt society should not punish someone forever. However, after discussing this scenario with a colleague, I am not so quick to forgive. This colleague suggested I needed to look at what the man has done to change. What body of work can he point to that shows that he is not the person who uttered those remarks? How is he different today than he was at the time of the incident? And when one thinks about this growth process, one has to see well beyond any superficial activities.

Another colleague pointed out that maybe he has reached as high as he is supposed to go. Yes, that incident limited his growth possibilities. He had an opportunity to have a career as a teacher and he has to realize that in part, because of that incident, his career ceiling has been limited. After thinking about this, I saw a similar comparison with a recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice. He, too, had a past. And yes, long ago in his career, there were alleged incidents. Some would slough them off as childish, immature, fraternity behaviors. I can’t. No one was stripping him of his career. He reached up a long way on his career path. But did he deserve to be a Supreme Court Justice? Did he change? What body of work can he point to in order to illustrate this change of character? Did he pay for his mistakes? I will let you decide your own answers to these questions. And please think about this without letting politics slip into your thought processes.

Realize that words and actions matter, no matter when they occur in one’s life. Everyone cannot sit at the head of the table.