Honest Mistake or Unforgivable Sin?

Leaders are respon­si­ble for both the good and the bad within our area of respon­si­bil­ity or scope of influ­ence. We are also respon­si­ble for help­ing to shape, men­tor, and grow the future lead­ers of this great nation. As part of that respon­si­bil­ity we must be able to rec­og­nize the dif­fer­ence between an hon­est mis­take and an unfor­giv­able sin. I will begin by putting rough def­i­n­i­tions around these terms.

What is an Honest mistake

One of the best ways to avoid acci­dents is mak­ing sure your rules and safety guide­lines are clearly understood.

In my opin­ion an hon­est mis­take is a mis­take that does not result in seri­ous injury or sig­nif­i­cant prop­erty dam­age. Subordinates learn valu­able life and/or lead­er­ship lessons from hon­est mis­takes. Others in the unit can learn from them as well. These mis­takes can take many forms. Some exam­ples are:

• a minor vehi­cle acci­dent that results in minor prop­erty damage
• a fail­ure to rec­og­nize an unsafe act due to inexperience
• fail­ing to check or follow-up on a task to ensure it was com­pleted to standard

Honest mis­takes are most often made by inex­pe­ri­enced Soldiers. Once the les­son is learned, they will prob­a­bly never make the same mis­take again.

What is an Unforgivable sin

In con­trast, an unfor­giv­able sin can­not be clas­si­fied as a mis­take. These are acts or events in which a Soldier made a con­scious or will­ful deci­sion to do some­thing they knew was wrong or allowed an act or event to occur that was unsafe, ille­gal, immoral, uneth­i­cal, and/or resulted in seri­ous injury or sig­nif­i­cant prop­erty dam­age. Some exam­ples are:

• dri­ving under the influence
• abuse of ille­gal drugs
• adul­tery
• steal­ing
• lying
• gam­bling with subordinates

There are also times when an indi­vid­ual makes an hon­est mis­take that is of such mag­ni­tude that it becomes unre­cov­er­able. If a pilot acci­den­tally pulls the ejec­tion han­dle in an air­craft he will not recover from this hon­est mis­take. He is leav­ing that air­craft. Likewise, a leader who fails to safe a weapon and causes a neg­li­gent weapons dis­charge that injures an indi­vid­ual can­not undo the dam­age done. Personnel who leave clas­si­fied mate­r­ial unat­tended and later find that the mate­ri­als have “dis­ap­peared” have no defin­i­tive way to know who has seen or taken the material.

Anything that causes seri­ous prop­erty dam­age or causes some­one seri­ous per­sonal injury is an exam­ple of an unfor­giv­able sin.

These are mis­takes that fall into the unfor­giv­able sin cat­e­gory due to the mag­ni­tude of dam­age. Even if the most well-intentioned and hon­est Soldier in your unit makes one of these mis­takes, there is noth­ing he can do to reduce the mag­ni­tude of the prob­lem. Be wary of the Soldier who tells you:

“I thought you said hon­est mis­takes were okay. We are sup­posed to learn from them. I learned from this and will not allow it to hap­pen again.”

Do not fall for this twist­ing of the truth. Individuals who com­mit unfor­giv­able sins and then use this approach fur­ther show their lack of integrity by fail­ing to accept respon­si­bil­ity for their actions or by plac­ing the blame on oth­ers. Worse yet, the Soldier in the exam­ple above is play­ing off your own sense of integrity. Handle indi­vid­u­als such as these in the firmest man­ner possible.

A bal­anced perspective

Discipline is often a bal­anc­ing act between main­tain­ing order and empathiz­ing with your Soldiers.

So what is the pur­pose of dis­cussing hon­est mis­takes and unfor­giv­able sins? A well-rounded leader exam­ines every inci­dent from two per­spec­tives: Firstly as a leader charged with enforc­ing stan­dards and main­tain­ing dis­ci­pline and sec­ondly as an indi­vid­ual who can empathize with the Soldier. It could have been you in the Soldier’s shoes–you were inex­pe­ri­enced once. You may even be in his posi­tion some­time in the future. This is a bal­anc­ing act and the goal is to find the sweet spot.

You can be a hard and fast leader who oper­ates in a zero defect world. If that is your style, be pre­pared for sub­or­di­nates who do not take ini­tia­tive, do not ques­tion orders that may be unclear, are unmo­ti­vated, and have lit­tle respect for you as a leader.

If you are an empa­thetic leader who weighs what hap­pened against what can be learned then chances are you will be con­sid­ered fair and just. This can fos­ter ini­tia­tive, pride, will­ing­ness to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion, high morale, and esprit de corps.

In a nut­shell it comes down to a sim­ple lead­er­ship prin­ci­ple: treat oth­ers as you want to be treated. Help them learn and grow not only from their mis­takes but the mis­takes of oth­ers. When the unit can hon­estly learn from its mis­takes the unit becomes more effi­cient and the team becomes stronger. I am not sug­gest­ing that you lower your stan­dards or that you treat crit­i­cal errors as minor events. On the con­trary, I am encour­ag­ing you to ham­mer indi­vid­u­als that choose to com­mit unfor­giv­able sins while ensur­ing the unit grows by shar­ing lessons learned through hon­est mis­takes. Good per­form­ers need to see that sub­stan­dard per­form­ers face sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences when they choose to make poor deci­sions and sub­stan­dard per­form­ers need to see the ben­e­fits of doing what is right even when no one is looking.

Read The Mentor: Everything you need to know about lead­er­ship and coun­sel­ing for more infor­ma­tion about Counseling, Leadership, Corrective Training, and Separations in the Army.