CHAPTER 5

Forgiveness:
Rising Again

How do we put down the burden of nonforgiveness when carrying it seems so justified? There are so many experiences in organizations that seem unforgivable. People who are otherwise good betray others, become in one’s eyes untrustworthy or incompetent. In the larger world, there are acts that are perpetrated in hate and anger that seem undeserving of forgiveness.

When we first began the journey of exploring building resilience with appreciative inquiry, we wondered about what it is that opens the door to the possibility of returning to a state of hope, however transient that might be. We deeply understood that the practice of hope and a hopeful view offered the ability to find hope in the tiniest of places. In finding that hope and a hopeful view greater resilience could be created. We also recognized that tapping into strengths and capabilities in times of despair was a powerful sustaining force. As we read, thought, and worked with leaders, we began to recognize another element at play in resilience: forgiveness. It wasn’t something that just happened along the way. Leaders decided to enter into the state of forgiveness with grace and power so that they could move themselves and their organizations forward. In the appreciative resilience model, forgiveness is the most difficult element to practice, because in organizations, the thinking often is that people should be punished, removed, or banished. In forgiving self and others, a leader chooses to be in a state of acceptance of what is and begins to move forward from that place.

Forgiveness offers a place where dialogue can begin and change can take place. Practicing forgiveness is very challenging because of the sheer will it takes to enact. Forgiveness is a conscious act that requires one to examine one’s leadership and deeply forgive failures—others’ and one’s own. As one interviewee stated:

Forgiveness is one of the fundamental necessary things we need to have happen in our lives. I wish I had more.

I wish forgiveness came easier to me. Forgiveness is very important. In any human system, you are going to have a problem with someone else. Somebody’s going to do something that offends you, or you misperceive and it is offensive to you; whatever it is, you see it as a slight or an attack, and if you hold on to that, you really can’t move forward in a human system together.

It is only through forgiveness that we literally have our minds changed and can see the possibilities before us. Forgiveness is a means of moving toward hope and sometimes of just living with what is unchangeable in our leadership lives. Forgiveness creates a space for leaders to let go of anger and hurt and look forward with realistic expectations. One interviewee who works with traumatic situations illustrates realistic expectations this way:

We must remember that we’re just human beings . . . . In this time when we’re expected to be brilliant at everything, to know everything, functioning optimally at all times, and so on . . . knowing that actually it’s not achievable. It might be achievable some of the time, and that’s good. . . . It’s about realistic expectations. . . . There are always going to be child deaths, dark times, errors, and if we can accept that we’re humans, that systems go wrong, that everyone is working optimally, and that those types of things going wrong can be times of knowledge and forward growth, learning, and change . . . they’re opportunities, not just a source of who needs to be sacked this year. . . . Those are things that just help us know more in the long run. . . . There never is just one person responsible; it’s not reasonable. . . . It’s crazy to think that any of us could be that powerful and all knowing.

In forgiveness, the relationship between what we are supposed to be, what we are, and what we are capable of becomes visible. We see both what is real and what is possible. Perhaps practicing forgiveness is when appreciative inquiry is most called for because forgiveness requires so much of leaders and leadership. Forgiveness requires that leaders appreciate in all forms: appreciating and recognizing what is; finding the positive in the situation no matter how small; and seeking to increase the best of what is. Leaders must also be willing to inquire into what the power of forgiveness might mean in this situation and be able to reside with what might evolve. To do these things requires a heightened awareness of perspective, a will to practice forgiveness, and a deep appreciative future focus. These three elements form a practice of appreciative forgiveness. We will return to these three elements later in the chapter. First, it is useful to seek a definition of forgiveness and examine forgiveness in relation to resilience.

Seeking a Definition of Forgiveness

In addition to being one of the most difficult parts of the appreciative resilience model to practice, forgiveness is also complex to define. The kind of forgiveness we are writing about in appreciative resilience is a notion that draws from the ideas of equanimity, compassion, unconditional regard for others, and a profound recognition of the possibility of human goodness. In building a working definition of forgiveness for the appreciative resilience model, we see the role of equanimity as one of recognizing that at times in a leadership life, one must just be with what is. Leaders can’t go back and rewrite a sequence of events, nor can they, as an actor in those events, be different than they were. Compassion allows leaders to recognize that, at times, people suffer, make mistakes, and do weird things within organizations. A compassionate stance can open a leader’s mind to forgiveness. Holding other members of an organization in unconditional regard is challenging when they have done something harmful. Similarly, it is not easy to consider the possibility of human goodness when someone has done harm. Some acts are considered unforgivable, yet some people can offer forgiveness in spite of that. In our work, leaders have commented on the difficulty of forgiving acts that appear to be unforgivable. We recognize how complex this is, and our view is simple: we invite you to practice forgiveness where you can, because through your practice, the possibility of forgiveness grows.

Forgiveness, at its most basic, can be defined as giving up resentment, anger, fear, and ego, and entering into a deep understanding of what is. We like Jack Kornfield’s definition: “Forgiveness is, in particular, the capacity to let go, to release the suffering, the sorrows, the burdens of the pains and betrayals of the past, and instead to choose the mystery of love. Forgiveness shifts us from the small separate sense of ourselves to a capacity to renew, to let go, to live in love” (2011). Love isn’t talked about in leadership very much because it can be fraught with so many implications and definitions. Kornfield’s idea of love can be interpreted as unconditional regard for the human beings around us, no matter how flawed or how frail. In this definition, there is the powerful notion that forgiveness recognizes what is and makes the decision to let go, to love, and to renew. This act of willful forgiveness is an act of appreciative leadership in that it appreciates what is and inquires into what is possible; it is a place of extraordinary leadership. In his article “Forgiveness: The Least Understood Leadership Trait in the Workplace,” Williams (2015) states that “forgiveness restores hope and productivity in the workplace. Not forgiving creates separation.” When there is separation, there is no ability to define or implement common goals, create a common direction, or move forward. When we are separate as leaders, we are not resilient for ourselves or our organizations.

Forgiveness is finding a place to move, if only by inches, toward a different state of understanding. One leader put it well:

My past hurt and lingering anger over betrayals by friends and colleagues who I have cared for and honored, surface at unexpected times and often sabotage my relationships with innocent friends and colleagues.

I see myself reliving the hurt and projecting my burden on others. I tell myself it is time to cease and to find ways to do this. There is the wanting and then there is the doing.

After realizing the weight of the burden and engaging in many discussions with myself and trusted friends, I come to the understanding that I must forgive myself. I must forgive myself for feeling duped, for feeling weak, for being naive, for caring too much, and for not being perfect as a leader. Most importantly, I recognize that I have truly been self-centered by expecting others to behave as I would expect myself to behave and then being astonished when their reaction is so very different from my own. A rather important piece of selfawareness. For me, part of forgiveness is understanding oneself and how the values that I hold as core to my being are not necessarily those that others hold.

As a leader, I don’t usually find forgiveness to be complex, nor do I find it to be difficult. We all make mistakes, we do things we regret and are sorry for, and we forgive each other and continue on, knowing that there will be more mistakes. The question is when does the mistake become a betrayal and enter the realm of “forgiveness”? I think this happens when it breaches core values that are the unwritten and often unspoken expectations of assumed human bonds. As a leader, I always knew that betrayal was part of organizational life—I just didn’t expect it to happen to me!

In my personal case, I came eventually to realize that my definitions of a situation were not necessarily the definitions of others. Had I been dealing with a different culture, I would have understood this immediately. Why then did I not see it with those who I assumed were friends and trusted colleagues? I was obviously not paying careful enough attention to their needs and expectations. On one level, I could then forgive them. Could I forgive myself?

As I struggled through the betrayal and forgiveness, I was seriously concerned that I might become cynical or hard rather than strong and hopeful. A few colleagues in the organization began to affirm me and indicate their support without venturing into the messiness of the situation. Their overt willingness to work with me and enjoy doing so was critical to my maintaining strength and purpose. I have not become bitter, or cynical, or withdrawn, or disengaged. I am more attentive, more questioning, more explicit about my values and more appreciative of the views of others.

I can truly say I have gone through the process of forgiveness and no longer carry the burden. It was easier to forgive others than it was to forgive myself. What forgiveness looks like is more difficult. It means that with others I can work with them as colleagues and acknowledge their skills, contributions, and value. I am 90 percent along the way of forgiving myself, and perhaps it is a good thing to be ever mindful of one’s effect on others.

Aiming to do the right thing and actually doing it are, of course, not the same.

I am a gardener, and as such I know seeds will scatter; some will remain dormant, and some will flourish. The winds will come, the sun will shine, and each season will contain hope.

In the poem at the beginning of this chapter, we state that forgiveness is not easy, nor is it kind. Forgiveness is challenging, as the leader quoted here has so wonderfully illustrated. It requires of leaders a determination to see that others both deserve forgiveness and don’t deserve forgiveness, and to offer it up anyway. It requires of leaders practice in seeing through appreciative and compassionate eyes the acts of others and the acts they themselves have perpetrated. It is about forgiveness of others and forgiveness of self. It demands the ability to reframe and see a situation from many dimensions. It calls out to its companions hope and despair that they are not alone—that there might be a path forward.

Forgiveness and Resilience

In our appreciative resilience work, we posit that forgiveness is the ultimate act of resilience. Forgiveness, as a conscious choice, is one of the paths to leadership resilience through its creation of agency. Agency is the ability to influence one’s own actions and the actions of others. Forgiveness increases this ability for leaders. Agency is a key ingredient to being resilient because when leaders can move and shift within an experience, they open possibilities and begin to remove the stranglehold of despair. For example, when leaders forgive those who have done harm, leaders begin to regain control over the story, the emotion, and the path forward. When leaders forgive themselves, they also gain agency as they move away from selfblaming and regret. Bright, Fry, and Cooperrider (2006) write about forgiveness that is transcendent in its call to assist others to flourish. We would add that forgiveness is transcendent in assisting oneself to flourish. Forgiveness can act as a positive shield in the resilient leadership journey of moving forward. This does not mean there are not consequences for self or others, such as job loss, discipline, loss of collegial friendships, loss of self-image, or loss of respect. To forgive is to act in a way that uplifts an ideal of human goodness and increases the capacity to have agency over one’s leadership life even in the most complex of situations. One of the leaders we interviewed said, “Nothing is more valuable or important than the ability to forgive. . . . Nothing good comes from staying mad.”

We worked with leaders within an organization who were determined not to forgive themselves or others. They were determined to blame, to cull people from the leadership team, and to resist forgiveness of any kind. We noted as we worked with them how powerful nonforgiveness was in slowing the forward momentum of the organization and in causing people to remain stuck. The holding on to blame and anger moved the leadership group into a lack of regard for each other that became their way of being. Without regard, they could not begin to innovate, create, or foster one another’s competence. Some leaders felt strongly that they could not move forward until others were punished for their actual or perceived mistakes. We noticed that as they remained in this state, the organization and the leaders were less resilient in the face of the everyday events of leadership. The leaders in this group were unrelentingly negative whenever another leader made a misstep. They were determined to assume ill intention on the part of others. They wanted other leaders to make decisions and then criticized them for doing so. Rumors were their currency. All of these actions made them less resilient in moving themselves and their teams forward. When we talked to them about forgiveness, they immediately spoke of past ill deeds, justice, and punishment, and how nothing could change until restitution had taken place. They were not willing to forgive.

This kind of experience brings into focus the intersection between resilience and forgiveness. This group individually and collectively was not resilient, not able to move their leadership forward until they could find a place of forgiveness. They were unable to foster agency for themselves or others. They were not able to move to a place of transcendent forgiveness that could allow themselves and others to flourish.

Appreciative Forgiveness

In our workshops on appreciative resilience, we ask leaders to tell a story of forgiveness and then reflect on how forgiveness has allowed their leadership to grow. This is a first step in understanding appreciative forgiveness. All leaders can tell a story of where they practiced forgiveness in response to small events or to life changing circumstances. In telling that story, they gain an awareness of their current practice of forgiveness and recognize that this practice is part of who they are. When leaders forgive, they offer something no one else can.

A key part of appreciative resilience is the practice of appreciative forgiveness, which is found in so many of the leaders’ stories. Here we focus on three aspects of appreciative forgiveness: awareness of perspective, a will to practice forgiveness, and an appreciative future focus.

Awareness of Perspective

Awareness of perspective encompasses the idea that there are a variety of elements at play that influence the way leaders understand situations. It includes the understanding that there are multiple views of reality based on power, culture, different worldviews, and other influences. An awareness of perspective can help leaders understand that their view is not absolute. One of our interviewees provided a great insight into awareness of perspective and forgiveness:

Fostering forgiveness . . . It comes down to pragmatism—recognizing the limits and balance of power, and acknowledging different views of reality. In order to foster forgiveness, you might need to recognize the limits of your own authority, your own power, and your own worldview. As angry as you might be or as wronged as you might feel, whatever that other person was thinking or feeling might have more merit—at least allow for that. How much of their worldview can you overlap with and embrace? How far toward forgiveness will that get you? What can you let go of beyond that to forgive? I’m not perfect at it; it’s a practice.

This leader begins with the idea of recognizing the “limits and balance of power.” Part of forgiveness is the recognition that leaders have a limit to their power and that there are things they cannot control because of competing demands and competing views of the path forward. In recognizing this, leaders must also forgive themselves and others because sometimes the right thing doesn’t get done or gets done too slowly. This interviewee also talks about worldview and recognizing the possibility that one’s leadership view might not be the only view. Not only might it not be the only view, but the views of others might have merit, even if one is deeply hurt. This is a tough practice in forgiveness, to ask oneself if one’s worldview is possibly not valid or not fully valid. Joan reflects on this idea of perspective:

I think about my leadership as a tiny drop of water in the ocean of leadership. I will die without solving world hunger, or world peace, or climate change. And yet my leadership added a tiny drop of water in so many ways. When I was young, I thought there were no limits to my leadership. I thought others would think like I did, and because we shared perspectives, together we would change everything. It was not the case. Yet I have made a difference in small ways. In looking back, it was in the places where I took the time and energy to understand the perspective of others where I made the most difference. And so I have learned to forgive the limits of my leadership, to seek out the multiple perspectives, and honor the successes that I have created with others.

Allowing for multiple perspectives in a situation is a form of reframing. Reframing allows leaders to begin to see the other possible worldviews and to be open to the idea that other views have merit. In a leader’s world, there are many worldviews at play that develop out of culture, diversity, events, and lived experience. To intentionally reframe and to practice seeing other perspectives open the leadership heart to forgiveness. When leaders see that their perspectives are not always shared truths, they change how they react. They alter the kinds of questions they ask, the types of actions they might take, and the openheartedness with which they might approach what is before them. Simply put, they practice appreciative forgiveness in big and small ways.

A Will to Practice Forgiveness

Anger, resentment, and fear are responses that often come quickly. Forgiveness is more complex. Forgiveness takes a will to practice and often requires leaders to pause in order to understand what is happening. They need time and reflection to find understanding, ask questions, and be fully aware of what is happening. In our conversations with leaders, they expressed many times that forgiveness requires a great deal of will. It is a practice that leaders may need to return to again and again. Depending on the cause, a leader can forgive and then return to resentment and anger and then need to start the forgiveness cycle all over again. Forgiveness is a choice, a profound choice steeled by a kind of leadership thinking that deeply understands what is, what is changeable, and what is not. The next story is a contribution on forgiveness written by a leader who speaks to helping someone who was undermining his leadership. In making this choice, he brings his will to bear on deciding on a positive course of action.

It took a while for me to realize what had happened. But even with increasing suspicion, the realization that my hand-picked successor had been undermining my authority and decisions with former colleagues was devastating. Since moving into a more senior position, I had recognized that relationships with former colleagues would be challenging and different. But I had not expected that my former colleagues would be my harshest critics and would appear hostile when I met them. Sure, I had taken a management position, but I was the same person!

The reason finally emerged. In conversation with a colleague, I was told I had made a decision on an issue that had never even been raised with me. I was then told that on several occasions, my former colleagues had been told I had made decisions which were seen as detrimental to my old department and that suggestions had been denied out of hand. I had not heard of the suggestions nor had I decided on issues that were of contention. The information that I had acted this way had been given to my colleagues by the new head. My immediate reaction was anger and wanting to confront the new head. I thought he was being spiteful. But I realized that rather than spite, there could be other reasons for his behavior. It was difficult to step back and look at the long view. This was a department I had nurtured and grown. I had been instrumental in hiring half the current staff (including the new head), and I had a national reputation in the field.

The end result was a realization that the new head was using me as an excuse to cover shortcomings and his nervousness about innovation or changing direction in the department. Also, I realized that my intimate knowledge of the old department was a barrier for a new head.

In the end came the realization that rather than anger, a step back, a long view, and a helping hand were needed. And were given!

In this story, we see the practice of willful forgiveness. In the next two stories, we follow along this track of forgiveness as a choice and an act of will. The first story describes a common leadership experience where another person is not contributing fully. Instead of being angry, this leader chose to practice forgiveness, and in the end the project was successful.

I was coleading a big yearlong project, one that required diplomacy and forgiveness in order to colead effectively, implementing constructive changes across a system of organizations who had historically competed rather than collaborated together. I represented one side of the competition, and my coleader represented the other. We got along well, but I felt that I was doing most of the work. At first I was angry but moved to choosing forgiveness because in forgiveness I realized that we could maintain a visibly cooperative systemic relationship. By doing most of the work, I was able to make generative systemic changes happen, a first time after many years of trying by others. Forgiving as opposed to being angry was a conscious choice. Many years later, people still mention the success of this project, and I’m reminded of the power of forgiveness.

The second example is much more complex:

An organization that had developed its strategic plan using appreciative inquiry was hit with despair several years into living its inspiring plan. The despair arose from incidents of sexual harassment in the organization. One of the strategic goals was to provide a welcoming and supportive environment. The leaders had thought they were moving toward that goal. Immediately after the sexual harassment incidents occurred, a group of leaders began a project to make changes in the organization to address these serious issues and to get the strategic goal back on track. In addition to designing concrete paths forward in response to the sexual harassment, there was another piece of work that was essential for these leaders. These were highly committed leaders who believed in creating inclusive workplaces and had prided themselves on accomplishing so much on that front. They were stunned to find out that their work around inclusion, respect, and safety was failing.

This had a deeply personal impact on them as leaders and how they saw their work and accomplishments.

In tandem with resolving the issues and replanning for the future, they needed to forgive themselves on many levels. They needed to forgive themselves for not seeing something that was right in front of them. They needed to forgive themselves for the failure of strategies they thought were working. They needed to choose selfforgiveness in order to be agents for positive change and to foster hope that replanned strategies would begin to work to create inclusion. To do otherwise would be to despair that change was possible. This took some time, as the issue was very complex. They were blamed for not knowing sexual harassment was going on and not creating a culture where people felt they could speak up. Forgiveness in this case was not an easy path but a necessary one.

These leaders had to forgive themselves because something had been happening around them that they were not aware of. They had to forgive themselves because part of their work was to be responsible for the actions of others, and they had failed in that. They also had to think through how to heal and restore their unit so that this did not happen again, and ensure that the perpetrators were effectively dealt with.

Forgiveness is an act of appreciative will. Each of the stories in this section is different and each depicts deciding to use forgiveness as a process to move forward. We believe it is the will to forgive that is so powerful. If leaders begin practicing forgiveness in the small places at work, it becomes a practice that they can lean on in the complex situations. We encourage you to exercise forgiveness and see the impact in your leadership life.

Future Focus

Intrinsic to forgiveness is an opening to the possibility of the future even as one resides in the present and deals with the past. By asking appreciative questions and by seeking to use the principles of appreciative inquiry, leaders can create movement toward a future focus as part of forgiveness. Leaning toward a future state that is different than the present begins the return to hope and offers solace. It offers a solace that does not discard the past but resides within it while opening to other possibilities. It can allow leaders to struggle with the most painful of events yet not be held captive by them. One of the interviewees put it this way:

I was sexually abused as a child. . . . I have had to struggle with forgiveness at a level that many women have had to go through, and only those that have gone through as a child know the stages that you have to go through . . . if you choose to go through them at all, to be forgiving. . . . And in spite of that, I still carry an innate belief that all people are good people, and I don’t want to give that up.

This leader cannot go back and have a different childhood. She is defined by that experience and simultaneously holds a future focus in the belief that “all people are good people.” As leaders move through the years of working within organizations, there will be many life-defining events that seek to anchor them to the past or to despair. This leader’s appreciative stance in believing that people are good opens the door to forgiveness and a future focus. Appreciative inquiry focuses on deeply recognizing what is and asking what might be possible for the future. This leader cannot change her life-defining events, but she can practice the art of forgiveness at such a level that she still sees human goodness around her, in her organization, and in her work.

Appreciative inquiry can also open the doors to the future by encouraging people to speak about difficult issues with intention and regard. Sometimes forgiveness begins with people sharing honestly what has negatively been affecting their relationships, enabling them to move forward into a more positive future. Jeanie reflects:

The members of an organization wanted to strengthen their relationships by focusing on living their values as they moved into a future based on change. They had a wonderful set of values that had been developed, but they were not living them. They engaged in an AI process with the topic “living our values through change.” Before beginning the 4-D appreciative inquiry process, they went through an exercise to surface and honor the challenges that were happening based on not living their values. After creating a list of these challenges, they reframed each of these as opportunities. These reframes then grounded the appreciative inquiry into “living our values through change.” Sharing together the challenges and reframes was a form of forgiveness, by shifting their focus from the challenges to what they wanted as a whole (reframes), acknowledging that they all were part of the challenges and were committed to the reframes. The AI process allowed them to discover where they were living their values through change. Then they built their dreams and designs on that.

Many times, we have found that beginning with this reframing exercise helps teams acknowledge what they don’t want (challenges) in order to then move into what they do want (reframes) for their future focus.

Appreciative forgiveness has many approaches and we encourage you to explore the three noted here and to continue to create new ones for yourself that can lead you to appreciative forgiveness.

A Last Note on Forgiveness

Leaders using forgiveness as an element of resilience recognize their own fragility, the frailty and inhumanity of others, and the cruelty of randomness. And still they forgive. In forgiving, leaders recognize that justice might be done—or not. They recognize that they may not be fully restored in themselves, nor will their organizations be put back to some desired state. They also recognize that the hardest path of leadership is the path forward toward hope and away from the dark companion of despair. We are ending this chapter with a wonderful piece written by a leader we interviewed about forgiveness:

It turned out, Dad wasn’t Superman.

The cape didn’t fit, but I loved him anyway.

Had a lover loved another (twice).

We still send each other Christmas cards.

My mentor failed me—sent me spiraling down.

I thank her for the lesson, and still call for her advice.

They are all human.

Me, too.

Still, I struggle to forgive myself and in moments of doubt my sins overtake me:

The gaffe

The brusque words

The unreturned call

The botched proposal

The wrong move

The last time this happened (Won’t I ever learn?)

These things aren’t me.

Well, they aren’t all of me.

But they haunt me still.

How do I banish them with forgiveness?

And love myself again?