In the pool room, I see plenty of negative things to write about, but it tickles me more to run across positive things to write about. Although few and far between, when they show up, I embrace them to the core.
Having attended several leadership classes, maybe I'm more aware of certain actions by people than otherwise? I dunno.
As I just wrote, we had league playoffs last weekend. The first Sunday match, I had an instance where the opposing team cheered for my loss. To say I was livid, is an understatement.
Later on in the match, the score is 11 to 8 us, in a race to 13. One of the guys (an older gentlemen) on the other is about to break, but he can't find his break cue. He asks my team if we've seen it.
"No, but what does it look like?" We ask him.
We start to check our cue racks and we don't see it.
He checks again around where his team is sitting and he still can't find it. He keeps walking around asking about it, looking for it.
His opponent, my teammate, walks up to him and tells him, "Take your time. Don't worry about breaking. I wouldn't be able to break either if I couldn't find my cue."
He is by now super upset.
"You bet I wont be breaking! I paid $300 for that cue and I am going to find it," he bellows loudly.
He then leaves our area and walks by every table in the place and checks everyone's cues. He comes back to our side of the pool room and is still looking for it.
He finally decides to break and as soon as he breaks he walks up to our team and says, "I found it."
"You did? That's great," one of us replies.
"It's my bad. My fault. I just remembered I put it up, in my case, because I thought the match would be over. It's my bad completely."
I sat there in utter astonishment. I really did.
You all may think this was minor, but in my leadership eyes, it was exceptional.
If that was me, I'd embarrassingly probably say, "Opps, I just remembered, it's in my case," and turn red with embarrassment or point to my blonde hair, lol. Others may just have said, "Oh, I know where it is." Or, maybe not acknowledge their mistake at all.
But, this man took FULL responsibility. He wasn't ashamed, embarrassed, or gave excuses. He blamed it on himself and completely accepted his mistake, in front of everyone.
I honestly don't think many other people would have reacted that way. It was a very enlightening moment for me to see such honesty of someone's own mistake like that in front of so many people. He took command of the whole situation - before and after. It was the after that impressed me: Accepting responsibility in front of everyone. Wow.
Taking responsibility for ones mistakes is a tough lesson to learn. Worse yet is deflecting blame to others. When exposed, the character flaw is a terrible thing to have to accept. But one may take it as a Life Lesson Learned and become a better person for it. Ignore it, and it becomes tough to live with.
ReplyDeleteGood points! Thank you for sharing.
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