The union president wanted a favor.
One of our officers had earned himself a lengthy suspension. He was a sexual predator, but his conduct fell short of what our rules allowed me to terminate him for. Believe me, I would have preferred to fire him. But I couldn’t. So the suspension was what I had.
The union wasn’t asking me to reduce the punishment. They wanted me to spread it out. Instead of serving the suspension consecutively, could he take a few days here and a few days there? That way, he wouldn’t take such a significant financial hit all at once. I understood why they were asking. The union’s job is to represent its members, even the ones who make you want to throw up in your mouth a little.
I felt it in my chest. I knew the answer was no. And then I said yes.
What the hell?
I’ve thought about that decision many times since. Not because it was the worst decision I ever made as chief. There were plenty of contenders. But because I knew better. I wasn’t confused. Nobody had tricked me. I wanted to be reasonable. That’s the embarrassing truth.
The union and I had fought over plenty of things, and I wanted them to see that I could give a little. I wanted credit for being fair, and somewhere in that desire, I lost sight of what was actually fair.
When I became chief, I promised my officers I would ask myself three questions before making a decision: Am I doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons? I even wrote about those questions in my book. Apparently, publishing your leadership philosophy doesn’t prevent you from violating it. Imagine that.
I failed my own test.
And here’s what bothers me most. The entire conversation was about the officer. His paycheck. His hardship. You know who wasn’t part of that conversation? The people he had victimized.
And I went along with it.
I’ve been reading research by Kristen Lucas and Jeremy Fyke on how the language changed as the Jerry Sandusky abuse at Penn State moved up the chain.
A graduate assistant saw Sandusky assaulting a boy in the locker room showers and told Joe Paterno it was “way over the lines.” Paterno told him he didn’t need to say anything else. By the time it reached university leadership, it had become “horsing around.” Administrators agreed to report it to child welfare authorities. Two days later, the plan changed. Instead, they would tell Sandusky his “guests” could no longer use the facilities. The university president praised the athletic director for taking on the harder conversation.
Think about that. A child became a guest. Sexual abuse became a facilities issue. And the actual hard conversation, the one about protecting children from a predator, never happened.
At least two more boys were assaulted in that same locker room.
I’m not suggesting my decision was equivalent to what happened at Penn State. It wasn’t. But I recognize the mechanism. We find language that makes an unacceptable situation easier to live with.
I didn’t tell myself I was compromising my judgment. I told myself I was being flexible. I didn’t tell myself I was making consequences easier on a sexual predator. I told myself I was maintaining a productive relationship with the union.
See how that works? We can make almost anything sound better if we choose the right words. And the dangerous part is that we usually believe our own bullshit.
We do this all the time. We describe someone who treats people like garbage as “passionate.” We excuse repeated outbursts because someone has “been through a lot.” We tolerate behavior that makes everyone else miserable because “that’s just how he is.” And when we’re tired of fighting, we convince ourselves that the mature thing to do is to be reasonable.
I’m not suggesting we abandon compassion, context, or nuance. But there’s a difference between understanding someone’s behavior and excusing it. There’s a difference between compromise and surrendering something you know matters.
The problem is that virtues make excellent hiding places. Loyalty sounds better than enabling. Patience sounds better than avoidance. Keeping the peace sounds better than being afraid of conflict. And reasonable sounds a hell of a lot better than admitting you caved.
My doctoral research focuses on what happens after leaders receive credible warnings but before a crisis unfolds. We tend to assume that if people have the right information, they’ll make the right decisions. Sometimes they don’t. The information is perfectly clear, but acting on it would require confronting someone, risking a relationship, or inviting a fight we’d rather not have. So we negotiate with ourselves until doing less feels acceptable.
We start out blind, and that’s forgivable. Then someone tells us, and we’re aware. What comes next is the moment of reckoning. Not when everything blows up, but when you recognize what’s happening and still have the opportunity to choose what happens next.
The lesson isn’t that compromise is bad. It’s that we need to be suspicious of our own explanations, especially when they make us feel particularly noble.
So here’s what I want you to consider this week. What word are you using to make a decision feel better than it actually is? Where are you calling something compassion when it’s really avoidance? Where are you congratulating yourself for being reasonable when you know damn well you’re giving in?
And who’s missing from the conversation? When all our attention goes toward accommodating the person causing the problem, we forget about the people living with the consequences.
I wish I’d asked myself that question before agreeing to the union’s request. I wish I’d listened to that feeling in my chest instead of finding a way to talk myself out of it.
But I didn’t. And that decision stays with me because I didn’t need more information or better advice. I already knew what I should do, and I chose something else.
This is your moment of reckoning. Step into it.
