Everyone makes mistakes. It’s OK to ask for help, and – if we’re lucky – we can correct them. More importantly, a great leader should learn from a mistake. I hope to lead as your next Calcasieu Parish police juror for District 8, and that includes admitting mistakes. Here’s one I once learned a lot from.
The Problem
When I was about 30 years old, I worked as the Assistant Director of Financial Aid at McNeese State University. I was responsible for disbursing checks for the T.H. Harris Scholarship – a critical source of funding that helped many students pay tuition.
As the fall semester approached, I verified each student’s eligibility, requested checks and sent funds out as quickly as possible. But as I soon realized, I had not checked with the Office of Business Affairs to ensure we’d actually received the funds from the State of Louisiana. As you can probably guess, they hadn’t come through yet. I’d just sent out checks we didn’t have the funds to cover!
The Solution
I was terrified when I realized my error. I thought I would be fired immediately. But I was also raised to admit my mistakes. So I immediately confessed to my supervisor, Desmond Jones, then the director of Financial Aid.
Des sent me to Vice President of Business Affairs Robert Turner. I’m sure I was shaking when I walked into his office, as I expected my career at McNeese to end that day. But I honestly explained the situation, and Mr. Turner just smiled and said it was OK. Knowing that the scholarship account didn’t yet have the funds, he could ensure the students’ checks would clear from another funding source until the money came in.
I was so relieved. And I promised him it would never happen again!
What I Learned
This situation taught me a couple of things.
Always tell the truth. If I’d tried to cover this up, students would have been unable to cash their checks. They wouldn’t have been able to pay their tuition. It could have had ripple effects for other people, and of course I’d have been found out anyway. By telling the truth from the start, I was able to accept help from people with more knowledge of the situation and correct the error.
Own up to your mistakes. In this case, by admitting I’d done something wrong, I actually gained respect from my supervisors. Knowing I would be honest with them, they trusted me to do the right thing. This eventually led to my promotion to Director of Financial Aid when Desmond Jones retired.
Maintain meticulous behaviors. It’s easy to rush things on occasion, especially if you’ve done them countless times before or have a million things on your to-do list. It’s how billboards with typos wind up on the side of the interstate! But ever since, I’ve focused on doing things right, not first.
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