Ducks in a Row: Guilt is Good
by Miki Saxon
Guilt is a positive force or at least it can be as long as it is the right kind.
First, some background.
When people mess up they have one of two reactions, guilt or shame.
What is important to understand is that they neither the same nor is one the flip side of the other.
Whereas someone who feels guilty feels bad about a specific mistake and wants to make amends, a person who’s ashamed of a mistake feels bad about himself or herself and shrinks away from the error.
In other words, guilt embraces and focuses on fixing whatever, whereas shame runs away and hides.
This is important to you because in both controlled experiments and real-world feedback the guilt prone tend to have more initiative, AKA leadership.
In all the groups tested, the people who were most likely to be judged by others as the group’s leaders tended to be the same ones who had scored highest in guilt proneness. Not only that, but guilt proneness predicted emerging leadership even more than did extraversion,
As a manager, no matter your level, it is important to remember that everybody makes mistakes, causes errors or just plain screws up.
When interviewing, learning about mistakes, errors and screw-ups along with reactions and subsequent actions is often more important than knowing what candidates did correctly or their greatest strengths.
Initiative is one of the most valuable components of MAP and it’s difficult to evaluate when interviewing; after all, candidates are unlikely to say they don’t have any.
And that is why smart mangers hire MAP, not skills.
Flickr image credit: Murray Barnes
