Team Building 101: Be Appreciative, Not Apologetic
As an admin you’ll encounter events that while it may not be your fault you’ll feel apologetic for.
The most common example is perhaps when you’re working with a meeting. You either have to reschedule it to another time or you have to cancel it. Usually not everyone will agree on the new time or cancelling it, so what do you do? You do it in the interest of your executive(s) (sometimes overruled by the interest of the business if they are not the aligned). Then you feel apologetic towards everyone else (or at least the person that has to take the call at 10pm, their local time), and if you don’t feel a little bad maybe you’re in the wrong line of work.
So what should you do?
Instead of saying “I’m sorry... I had to move it”, try saying “Thank you for understanding”. Replace the apology with an appreciation because it isn’t your fault that it turned out this way. While your team may or may not know it’s out of your control, they don’t need you to feel sorry for them. They want you to appreciate the dedication they have for the business and the company.
This sort of thing will happen a lot so if you apologize every time your team will see you as someone who messes up a lot or someone who doesn’t have any control.
When you do mess up though, make sure you own up to it. Everyone make mistakes, it’s what they do when it happens that matter.
