One of the most demanded virtues of leaders in the public realm, be they politicians or corporate leaders, is consistency. Consistency is a preamble to trust. And trust is a prerequisite for a good reputation. Not a flawless reputation, there is no such thing, but one that is resilient and able to recover from incidents or even crises.
So what if you find out you’re wrong?
To understand the very concept of a reputation, we must see it as the living organism it is. All tangible assets and materialized results aside, a corporate reputation is built on, and embodied by people — who learn as they go, are subject to change and prone to make mistakes. Yet why are most corporate leaders so reticent about addressing this in their communication?
Analogous to the African aphorism “I am because we are”, reputations exist by the grace of their surroundings. Yet in Western societies, corporate leaders are educated by a system that stigmatizes mistakes. They would not likely admit it, but even c-suite members are frightened to be wrong. As a consequence, they run their companies that way. So when caught in the act or message that does not hold true to a preceding promise, their born and bred inclination is to deny or deflect, hoping it will all blow over as soon as possible.
The quality of a company and its leader therefore, one could argue, is measured by how quickly one is forgiven. I believe that the public, in all its judgments through citizen journalism, can be very forgiving to corporate and political leaders. Given the chance, and provided with context.
Admitting a mistake in public, I know, may not always be an immediate option – certainly not when there’s a lawyer in the room. I’ve been involved in crises where management made an art form of explaining the difference between responsibility and guilt, just to buy time. But the fabric of a good reputation is constituted by the threads of routine, not incidental communication. Oddly enough, it’s better to be known for some mistakes in context, than for one incident blown out of proportion.