Leadership & Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a tough pill to swallow. It is not easy because we have to become comfortable and resonate with a level of acceptance. A beautiful affirmation I love is in order to accept the new, you have to create room for it. Forgiveness allows doing so. Forgiveness is not for the other person but ourselves. We forgive ourselves for not being compassionate to ourselves, not being gentle, not understanding, and not beating ourselves up for wanting to hold on when our internal karmic energy is still going through the residual process of what used to be.

As we lead our own lives, lead ourselves to a healthy and wealthy life physiologically, whether one has a little or a lot, we must assess ourselves on two leadership components that allow us to lead our lives healthily.

According to Linkedin’s article 6 Key Components to Effective Leadership, you need to have honesty, integrity, and Courage.

Honesty and integrity – “Effective leaders must also be trustworthy. They are recognized for always telling the truth and for practicing the highest standards of ethical conduct. Subordinates believe them and do not feel that their leader has hidden agendas. Good leaders readily admit their mistakes. Although difficult to do, this shows they are honest and can be trusted.”

We must be honest with ourselves, and that’s the first step of forgiveness. Being honest with ourselves about what is, what was, and what will be as life goes on. Holding standards of integrity in which one’s ethics and morals do not waiver to the worst regardless of what was. We continue to hold them to a high standard, and if we are to change or adjust them, we do so with wisdom moving towards an even high standard as we use the situation, environment, etc., as a learning lesson.

Courage – “Great leaders have the ability to make tough decisions and are willing to take risks, even when conventional wisdom would dictate otherwise. They must be willing to stand alone if they believe in their convictions. This is directly related to their visionary skills, strategic thinking and their self confidence.”

Courage is self-explanatory. After working through the first step of forgiveness, one must be courageous to work through the process of forgiveness, going to those uncomfortable, dark places, replaying the memories, longing for a different outcome, and the emotions that arise when going through the steps of forgiveness.

I’ve come to this observation as I spent time in therapy talking about my anger and frustration towards my father. My father was absent for the majority of my life. The small amount of time I spent with him as a late teenager was cut short, which reignited the hurt, frustration, disappointment, and other emotions that led to anger. My inner child held on to this anger into adulthood and still let it get in the way of forgiving my father as an adult.

As a full-grown adult who has an apartment, pays my bills and exists in this world as a young black man, I’ve come to realize one thing about my father. He also is a black man that lives in this world. By all means, I’m nowhere near excusing his neglect for not handling his responsibility to raise a child that he participated in making. Still, I had to think about how hard it is to exist in America as a Black man.

As a Black man, I know all of the barriers, stereotypes, and ism’s I have to face daily, and I have to understand that my dad meets the same things. He may have it worst because the one thing I have that he doesn’t is education privilege.

In my observation, I had to ask myself, if I was in my father’s shoes facing the same struggles and trying to raise a child, what would I do? How easy is it to fail when the system that I exact in works against me and not for me? Even if I tried, how does the system take things away from me that my child wouldn’t see, causing me to show up empty-handed? Because as children, we only see our parents, not the factors they face and attempt to overcome to try and be the best parent they can be.

Again, I am not excusing his neglect, but I had to recognize the other factors at play. Identifying these other factors made forgiveness a bit easier because not only did I hold the compassion for myself, I created some for him.

Sometimes we have to look at the factors that exist when our parents fail us. Not to say that there are just some bad parents out there, no excuse. For those parents who are wrong, what factors were at play before bad parents brought their child into the world. What caused them to do specific actions or think a certain way?

Forgiveness of our parents for when they are also learning is for ourselves and not them. To the premise of leading towards a healthy and wealthy life physiologically, sometimes we have to forgive our parents simply for ourselves to heal and produce the outcome that is better for us and the future we intend.