Page 94 | Volume 1 | The Leadership Journal of Dallas Baptist University

94 Ducere Est Servire: THE LEADERSHIP JOURNAL OF DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY All leaders talked about forgiving team members who reported to them. All leaders also talked about forgiving their supervisors or business partners. Three leaders talked about unfair treatment by customers. Theme Two: There are some common emotions leaders have when they experience a wrong. The research explored two situations where leaders had to choose to extend forgiveness: errors at work and interpersonal conflict at work. The most common emotion that leaders experienced when errors happened at work was frustration. In terms of word usage, it had a weighted percentage greater than 26%. It was evident that leaders felt frustrated when team members made errors at work. Their frustration arose not out of a feeling of failure but because of the choices their team members made. For example, Participant I mentioned that mistakes happen when team members take shortcuts, forgetting that they were in an environment where safety is the top priority. Leaders also felt frustrated with themselves and their management style. Participant X said, “[I wonder] did I not put the right mechanisms in place or give clear enough direction?” All four leaders mentioned looking inward to see what they could have done better or how they could have helped those reporting to them from making the mistake. When the team reporting to the leader made mistakes that would cause the company financial loss running into millions of dollars, one of the leaders expressed feeling panic, shock, and denial. Two of the leaders handled errors at work by following the scientific method, the five whys approach, to identify the root cause of the error. One of the leaders used a personal approach to identify the error and fix it, and one of the leaders used the deconstruction approach to identify the error and resolve it. The most common emotion that leaders felt when they handled interpersonal conflict was an annoyance. Two of the leaders felt that they were “babysitting,” implying a waste of time. One of the leaders said he felt inadequate to handle it. Some of the leaders also felt frustrated. Participant X observed that, in a conflict situation, both the team members have the same motivation but decide to take a different approach to a project, creating conflict. He said:

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