Public figures in 'sorry' state
Mastering art of high-profile apology a key leadership test
Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi wrote an impassioned front-page apology to his furious wife. Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden has done the heartfelt public mea culpa -- twice now -- and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has done it repeatedly in the past few years, for everything from off-the-cuff musings to Hollywood star-era bad behavior.
So San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's pained public apology Feb. 1 for an affair with the wife of his campaign manager served as a high-profile initiation into a growing club -- that of prominent public figures who have had to say "I'm sorry" in the glare of very big headlines.
As Newsom proved last week, there's a fine art to the delicate problem of making a public apology -- and not everyone navigates the crucial steps to make it effective, said Barbara Kellerman, a lecturer at the Center for Public Leadership in Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
"A leader's apology is a performance in which every expression matters and every word becomes part of the public record," Kellerman wrote in her extensive study published in the Harvard Business Review called "When Should a Leader Apologize -- and When Not?"
That, she said in a telephone interview from Boston, makes this difficult act the ultimate high-stakes move "for themselves, for their followers, and for the organizations they represent."
The latest political apologies are just the most recent in a line that runs back decades and includes, among its most famous, President Bill Clinton's 1998 mea culpa in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Kellerman said there are five simple rules when it comes to the art of a good public apology: Acknowledge your mistake, accept responsibility, express regret, say it will never happen again -- and make it fast.
And in that context, Kellerman gave Newsom's performance decidedly mixed reviews.
She rates his first apology -- perfunctorily delivered in a news conference Feb. 1 -- as highly effective. "Consider the context," she said. "If he were mayor of Boise or Tallahassee, Fla., the level of tolerance would not be the same. ... He did fess up and turn people's attention back to the business of the city."
That is, until last week, when the San Francisco mayor followed that up by telling his department heads that he had an alcohol problem and would seek counseling. Kellerman said that made it all look suspiciously like part of a new -- and increasingly tiresome -- trend: the apology-rehab combo.
Similar themes were used recently by a congressman (former Rep. Mark Foley, copping to hitting on male interns), a movie star (Mel Gibson, anti-Semitic rant), a TV star (Isaiah Washington of "Grey's Anatomy," anti-gay rant) and a comedian (Michael Richards, anti-black rant).
"It's a joke," Kellerman said of the rehab explanation. "Anybody who is serious thinks of that as more funny than anything else. I think for a public official, that's not generally the way to go. I think most people dismiss that out of hand."
Newsom's public apology, though national news, was trumped in the international headlines by an even more eye-opening one -- that of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who delivered a "mea culpa" so memorable that an Italian commentator predicted it "will be used in years to come by men from the left and the right as a blueprint for conjugal repentance."
The apology came after Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario, wrote a front-page open letter to a major Italian newspaper, headlined "Silvio, Say You're Sorry." It demanded that Berlusconi, reported to be Italy's richest man, show her respect and stop flirting with other women in public settings -- as recently when he told an attractive woman at an event that if he weren't married, "I would marry you immediately."
The former premier delivered the sugar in a searingly passionate front-page response, published with the headline, "Veronica, Forgive Me."
"Take this public show of my private pride giving in to your fury as an act of love. One of many," he said, in a letter that ended with the sign-off, "a big kiss, your Silvio."
It was a masterful performance, Kellerman said. "He's been immensely successful in public life as in corporate life -- so who can quarrel with someone that powerful? He committed a range of sins, sure ... but then again, it's Italy. The levels of tolerance in Europe -- especially for issues relating to fidelity and marriage -- indeed are enormously different than in this country."
She isn't as kind to Biden, who had to apologize in a past presidential campaign for plagiarizing parts of his campaign speeches. The Democratic senator was forced to do it again this month when he called presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama a "clean" African American candidate for president.
Biden "is known for running off at the mouth," Kellerman said, and his past misdemeanors make this "not so readily forgivable. We're not talking a personal but a public matter. It's much tougher to get over."
And since this transgression concerned a comment on the very sensitive issue of race, "it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to recover."
But in the case of Schwarzenegger, who has publicly apologized for groping and for such comments as suggesting a Latina legislator was "hot-blooded," the public is more likely to cut him a break, Kellerman said.
"Context matters," she said. The California governor is a former Hollywood star who -- like it or not -- gets more slack in the apology department.
And for that, "he might thank his wife," Kellerman said. First lady Maria Shriver, who softens her husband's rough edges on many a public occasion, "is every bit as responsible, if not more so, for the (public's) willingness to forgive. So he owes a very high debt of gratitude to his eternally loving and tolerant wife."
