I recently shared a quote attributed to George Washington: “Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who make excuses.” This quote and the discussion it generated got me to thinking about excuses and those who frequently use them.
In my book Be An Inspirational Leader: Engage, Inspire, Empower, I devoted an entire chapter to the concept of being accountable. In that chapter I compared and contrasted explanations and excuses. Here is what I wrote:
- An explanation is information intended to clarify the circumstances of an event.
- An excuse is a defensive reaction made in an attempt to deny some or all responsibility.
As you can imagine, it is a very fine line that separates the two. And sometimes, when under pressure to respond to a question or accusation, these two responses intermingle into a combination of helpful clarification and defensive self-preservation. We may think we’re simply explaining the circumstances, but in reality we’re also hoping to mitigate our responsibility.
It can be very hard to differentiate between the two. Am I really just explaining what happened? Or am I making excuses for myself?
It takes a lot of self-discipline and practice to stick to non-defensive explanations and avoid making excuses. But ultimately, a commitment to accountability will reap far greater benefits and better guard your reputation than attempting to protect your ego and avoid blame by giving excuses!
