How to deal with professional misconduct

Steve Smith breaks down while admitting his guiltIts yesterdays news that Australian test cricketers Steve Smith David Warner and Cameron Bancroft have paid a heavy price for a mistake they made at their workplace The mistake is willful balltampering The workplace in this case is a playing field Their professional career lies in tatters now It will be 12 months before Smith and Warner now former captain and vicecaptain of the Australian cricket team are allowed to wear the baggy green cap again And this is despite the fact that they have both made tearful apologies for their unscrupulous actions They have both unreservedly admitted their guiltThat admission however has changed the narrative of the story Up until then complete indignation was the overriding reaction to their cheating which is the only word that can be used to describe their behaviour But when Smith and then Warner broke down before the worlds media while asking for forgiveness they were accorded a certain level of sympathy We saw the two tainted men express regret for the pain they had brought to their fans country and family To see the way my old mans been and my mum it hurts confessed Smith And when it was his turn an equally inconsolable Warner said I want to apologise to my wife and daughters Your love means more than anything to meCameron Bancroft PicsAFPIts a terrible situation for them and Bancroft to be in But making a mistake in a professional capacity is something that happens to the best of us The question is how does it impact who we are as human beings What is the healthiest way to deal with such a scenario And what course of action should we take to make up for the error be it as a subordinate who has made it or as a boss tasked with reprimanding his juniorsSpot the errorThat depends entirely on the nature of the error says psychotherapist Banani Ghosh There are essentially three types of mistakes she adds One is genuine where the person concerned has made the gaffe unwittingly Another is willful where the wrongdoer enters a situation completely aware that what he or she is about to do doesnt conform to acceptable norms of integrity And the third type of mistake is when its committed on someone elses instructions All three Ghosh says evokes different responsesShe says When a person is making a genuine mistake he is not aware of what the consequences of his actions will be So when the error is brought to his notice his usual response is to say sorry to his superiors But when the mistake is intentional the person has complete knowledge of the possible repercussions So he goes about the situation in such a way that he can hide his actions hoping he is not caught But getting caught is bound to happen eventually And in that scenario it is usual for the person to get defensiveOften she adds the mistake can be so severe that it can lead to the culprit being handed the pink slip The main psychological impact in such cases is severe guilt But what also happens is that when word spreads about the sacking the person concerned can get into severe depression He then starts justifying his mistake But if his alibis are rejected the depression can turn into a complete breakdown That in turn can lead to something as drastic as suicide This isnt necessary of course It depends completely on the persons mental constitution But what I have also seen is people turning extremely violent This is because they have not been able to maintain the image that they had tried to build in their personal life And violence is thus a way for them to salvage their sense of power I have seen this happen mostly with men however Women on the other hand tend to become really withdrawn in such casesA social thingThe crux of the problem Ghosh continues lies in skewed societal upbringing Say you have made a mistake but you are not sure about it as it can be sometimes As your superior I should then tell you Look I think that you might have made a mistake here But thats not how we talk We say things straight up You have made a mistake you have done this thing wrong Our upbringing has been such that we have been taught to not do things that will make people point a finger at us That is the sort of strange education that society gives us For instance when a child is crying we dont normally ask him or her Whats happened to you why are you crying Instead we say Dont cry what will people say So we end up looking at ourselves through societys eyes and maintain an image that we buildThat image has now cracked for the three Australian cricketers But their tears Ghosh tells us might not be born out of sorrow or guilt alone See we dont know whether they had been tampering balls earlier or not But we do know that they did it this time voluntarily They might have done it before and got away with it And they might have thought Okay we will get away with it this time too But they did not And what they did was aimed at winning something it was meant to hurt someone else But now they are forced to admit defeat That has led to them facing a sense of humiliation about themselves They are now forced to look at themselves in the mirror and ask Is this who I really am So the imaginary image they had built for themselves an image that was born out of fantasy is now shattered And thats what they are not being able to deal withMy employees mistakes are regular but genuineAn accountant on Abhijeet Chakravartys team for his solar panel business is known to make regular mistakes Chakravarty says In fact I had to have a severe word with him just two hours ago since he made an accounting error while filing my taxes But the only reason I was harsh with him is because he was not ready to accept his mistake and made excuses after I had pointed it out This person wouldnt have been able to keep his job in any other company But I didnt fire him because he is an old man and wont be able to find another job Also the mistakes he makes might be regular but they are genuine I also would have been forced to sack him had his errors led to losses for the company But that hasnt happened yet thankfullyMy boss hurt my confidencePooja Sinha Roy is a brand consultant She tells us that she once got the name of a client wrong in a presentation This led to a sticky situation with her boss who wasnt the easiest person to deal with My first response was to apologise profusely to the client And I got him a free ticket to a conclave as a way to make up for it But my boss hauled me up Everything was fine eventually with the client But my boss told me Next time lets not make the mistake of giving people free things without understanding that the free thing ultimately helped us save the client Plus my boss had gone through the presentation thrice herself and she didnt catch the error I hoped that in a situation like this she didnt hurt my confidence and selfesteem Roy saysCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from 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