Naples Comprehensive Health – NCH North Naples Hospital

Prem Oommen

Organizational Trust Advisor

Leadership is not measured only by the decisions we make when everything goes right. It is revealed by what we do when something goes wrong. Do we acknowledge the damage, accept responsibility, and begin repairing trust? Or do we retreat behind excuses, blame others, and insist that admitting a mistake would make us look weak?

Let’s look at today’s state of America and its leadership culture mostly coming out of 2025 and deep into 2026, where too many people seem to confuse accountability with surrender. The apology, once a straightforward expression of decency a decade ago, has become something to avoid, negotiate, or bury beneath carefully prepared statements. Due to the availability of news right at our fingertips, we hear explanations without ownership, sympathy without responsibility, and promises of investigations without any meaningful acknowledgment of the people who have been hurt.

Being in some sort of leadership role for the past two decades, this concerns me. As I reflect on this new trend, leadership without humility eventually becomes power without restraint.

I began thinking about this issue some time ago while watching news coverage of that fatal encounter involving federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. What stayed with me was not simply the competing accounts of what happened. It was the distance between the human tragedy and the defensive language surrounding it. A life had been lost. A family was grieving. Yet the public conversation seemed consumed by protecting positions rather than recognizing suffering.

An investigation must establish the facts. Video footage, official statements, and political reactions should not substitute for a thorough examination of evidence. But uncertainty about legal responsibility does not prevent a leader from expressing compassion. Saying that a death is tragic, acknowledging a family’s pain, and promising a credible investigation do not require prejudging the outcome.

"Greater authority should bring greater responsibility, not greater immunity from it."

When wrongdoing is established, however, compassion alone is insufficient. An apology must follow, accompanied by accountability and corrective action.

Resistance to those simple principles is not confined to politics. We encounter this now in everyday interactions within families, at work, in businesses, hospitals, restaurants, Facebook and Instagram posts, uber rides, fast food drivethrus and even door dash deliveries. Someone makes a poor decision, another person bears the consequences, and suddenly the conversation becomes an elaborate defense of why nobody should have to say, “I was wrong.”

A recent trip to Costco with my wife offered a smaller, considerably less consequential example. I had selected a parking space, but she spotted another closer to the entrance. We waited while an elderly couple loaded their groceries, only to discover that they needed to return for a forgotten item. By then, the available space was gone. I assumed an apology might be appropriate. It never arrived.

After twenty-three years of marriage, I also knew that a parking dispute was hardly worth turning into a courtroom proceeding. Marriage requires patience, compromise, and the ability to distinguish an inconvenience from a genuine injury. Sometimes love means letting a small disagreement remain small, including surrendering the satisfaction of proving you were right.

Public leadership operates under a different obligation. A spouse’s parking suggestion and an official’s defensive response are not comparable failures. People entrusted with public authority wield power that can affect livelihoods, freedom, and lives. Their responsibility extends beyond defending themselves or reassuring their supporters. They owe the public who voted for them honesty, restraint, and a willingness to be answerable for the institutions they lead.

The same principle applies in the business workplace. A CEO, VP, Director or any manager who dismisses an employee’s concerns, or unfairly assigns blame, or conceals a damaging decision cannot repair the relationship merely by insisting on good intentions. Authority may secure compliance. It does not automatically earn trust.

Accountability begins with plain language: “We made a mistake. This is how it affected you. We are sorry. Here is what we will do differently.”

A genuine apology names failure without hiding behind passive language. It recognizes the harm without demanding that the injured person immediately forgive. Most importantly, it commits the leader to change. Without that final step, an apology becomes another Hollywood performance, designed to calm criticism rather than correct conduct.

Our current culture now too often rewards the opposite. Defiance attracts attention and “likes”. Humiliation becomes entertainment and gets more “views”. Admitting error is treated as handing an opponent a weapon. When leaders model that behavior, they encourage everyone watching, including our children, to regard empathy as a liability and stubbornness as strength.

We should reject that bargain, regardless of party, profession, or personal allegiance. No leader becomes more trustworthy by pretending to be infallible. No institution becomes stronger by treating every criticism as an attack.

The leadership standard we need is neither perfection nor endless public self-reproach. It is the courage to face reality, the discipline to correct mistakes, and the decency to recognize the humanity of those affected.

We teach our own children to apologize when they hurt someone. We should not lower that expectation when those same children become executives, elected officials, or heads of powerful companies. Greater authority should bring greater responsibility, not greater immunity from it.

An apology cannot undo every injury. But an honest apology, followed by meaningful action, can begin rebuilding what arrogance destroys.

That is not weakness. That is leadership. And it starts with us!