The leader must be careful of accepting good reasons for bad outcomes. When good people do good work, they may still experience a bad outcome. Thus because they are good, and because their work is good, they can sometimes offer a good reason for a bad outcome. The empathetic leader may be tempted to accept this good reason as a good excuse. Beware: Some outcomes are so important that no excuse is acceptable. In such cases, the leader’s team may believe their leader to be unreasonable, but unreasonable (unacceptable) outcomes demand “unreasonable” leaders.
