Welcome back!
Strategically developing others sometimes means helping someone rehabilitate their career. It is your job to lead the way in assisting those who have messed up with regaining their equilibrium and restoring good relationships with the team. If termination is not possible or appropriate, then it falls to you to help make the situation right. You need to teach and practice forgiveness. Mercy is required. This is a non-negotiable aspect of a healthy environment. It doesn’t mean that you condone bad behavior or allow it to continue. It doesn’t mean that everyone will like or trust each other. It does mean that once the offense has been dealt with, people don’t hang onto it so they can move forward. If someone has really messed up and hurt the team, let people voice the impact the transgressions had on them. Making them stuff their thoughts and feelings will only serve to further entrench the problem. It’s also part of taking full accountability for the offender to realize the impact of their behavior on other people. Quite frankly, the offended need to be heard, and the offender needs to hush up, listen, and work to make things right.
Don’t settle for a fake peace. Do not allow undercurrents of bitterness, resentment, or animosity to exist on your watch. You’re the leader, this is part of the job. Do the hard work necessary to help offenders mend fences. Do the hard work necessary to help the offended process and move past the problem. Your goal is a team who works professionally together. If someone has breached trust, it is going to take some time to build a new normal together, but it can be done. Reconciliation is possible for a manager with the backbone to face the issues head on and lead the team through the mess. There are a lot of incredibly valuable life lessons inherent in the process, and it will serve your team well in their professional and personal lives, for the rest of their lives. We are only human. Mess ups are inevitable. Moving past them is often not done, and is rarely done well.
Until next time, I will pray for discernment as you detect undercurrents and deal with offenses.