Should I email an apology after disagreeing with senior colleague in group email?

[Levithecat]

I did something very silly at work and disagreed with a senior publicly in a group email. I rightly got hauled over the coals by my boss after his boss and the person in question raised it. I asked my boss what repair work I could do and he said to leave it.

I generally don’t like leaving things unsaid (which was part of the issue in the first place) so was thinking of emailing bosses boss and the person in question and saying something like -

I wanted to sincerely apologise for expressing an opposing view publicly last week. It was absolutely not the forum to do that, and I want to assure you that it won’t happen again.

I don’t want to get into the specifics of the disagreement with them because I stand by my view, but agree that I should definitely not have used a group email to express it.

is that email text ok?

Yes, a perfect response, I'd say

Leave it - like you’ve been told to
Everyone wants to forget it
No words are right when you dredge up something you have categorically been asked to leave behind

Leave it, least said soonest mended.

Leave it.

You have been asked to leave it, ignoring that will just compound the issue.

Have you ever seen a man do what you're proposing? There's your answer.

If your boss said leave it, then leave it. Or at the very least, check with him before you send it to see if he's ok with it.

If your boss has said to leave it then don’t email his boss, you’ll be pissing two people off then
try and put some perspective on this, people make mistakes, look at it from an outside point of view if you read that mail from someone else you wouldn’t spiral thinking about it would you

I actually think you probably should. I once left something similar and the air was never cleared and things where never the same and I was basically quietly labelled difficult for the rest of my time there

I agree with this, and was going to say the same. Was your disagreement actually valid? Not that it matters of course.

The more I work the fewer opinions I express. Go to work, do job, get paid, go home, forget.

Is the issue

1. that you didn't express your view in a professional way (in which case I would apologise)
2. that you continued to raise it when asked not to (in which case, leave it as you've been told to)
3. you raised the issue once in a professional way, but to a wider audience than was necessarily appropriate although no particular harm in doing so (if you've been "hauled over the coals" for doing this, I would be looking for another job - a healthy organisation would welcome debate)
4. you raised the issue once in professional way, and it's caused issues amongst some of the wider audience with whom it was raised e.g you raised something about resourcing that had a direct impact on some in the group (I would probably still leave it as you've been asked to do so, but you could consider apologising - but in that case you need your apology to reflect an understanding of the harm you've caused, not simply that you raised something)

This is my concern. I’m quite senior too and would always chose to tackle difficulties. My boss is very much bury head in the sand.

I think @SirChenjins idea of emailing my boss to check and including my proposed email text could be the way to go. I don’t mind annoying him too much! But I do need to rebuild things with his seniors, who don’t know me so well so wouldn’t give me the grace that he would.

It's overkill.

Just leave it now.

What was the point in asking your boss' advice if you're just going to ignore it?

I’d leave it. I can’t see why your boss hauled you over the coals just for disagreeing with someone, that seems very unfair. Sometimes you do have to put your head above the parapet and say something - just because they are senior doesn’t make them right.

And honestly if you were a man I don’t think you would have got in trouble or be considering apologising!

What did you disagree on though?

The place to get the next buffet or a policy regarding safeguarding that he didn't understand?

That responce sounds passive-aggressive.

I'm a senior leader. Sending a short apology email to the person you offended (only) is a good idea. Think carefully about what you want to apologise for though. You should not be apologising for expressing an opinion. You might want to think about the right way to express that opinion next time, and focus on that.

I would imagine the right way is to discuss your opinion in a 121 with your line manager.

So much depends on the personalities involved, but apologising to the person you’ve offended is the grown-up thing to do. Along the lines of “Please accept my apologies for….and I recognise it was inappropriate…”

If I were your boss and had told you to leave it, and then you sent me an email proposing to do the exact opposite - I wouldn’t be at all
impressed.

Edited to add: I might apologise verbally next time I saw the person I’d disagreed with, but only if the vibe felt right to do so and only if alone.

If you stand by your view, then I'd leave it - as you've been advised to do. If you apologise, the risk you're taking is that the senior boss thinks you might be changing your view.

Without knowing what the issue was/what you said, it's obviously difficult to be more specific! But I wonder if you're over-thinking this a bit?

I would ring them. Email is insincere and can be forwarded. Call and clear the air.

Leave it - nothing like another email to stir things up. Your boss considers the matter closed. If you must do this make it a call when an opportunity presents itself.

I'd leave it. You are suffering from halo effect / main character syndrome. Yes you pissed off someone senior and it feels huge to you but it's just a blip in their day. You are thinking about it far more than they are. That's understandable, but bringing it up again is just going to bring it back to the front of their mind and make it into something more than it needs to be.

If you are on their radar enough for this to matter, you will have opportunities to show yourself in a better light. If you don't interact with them directly, then this faux pas by one of their little people won't register with them at all for long.

Are you likely to see the person in question in real life? I feel like an email can come across passive aggressive and I'd avoid that as you don't know how it could be read.

If you see the person in real life I'd ask for a quiet word and then I'd say what you've said here in person, that you respect them as a colleague and you recognise that it wasn't the best forum and you should have asked for a discussion separately to talk it through with them and that you hope they understand it was done with good intent for the project as opposed to anything else and that you can continue to work together in future.

Though to be honest, I think it depends on what the disagreement was about. I'm used to quite a flat operating structure where seniors don't 'pull rank' and if I was challenged by a less senior employee I'd welcome their input. Provided it wasn't delivered harshly or as a personal attack. I certainly wouldn't be running to my boss about it. If I felt disrespected I'd also have come to you directly so I feel like this has been badly handled all round. Which might be why your boss is saying what he needs to, but then telling you to leave it so you aren't weakening your hand.

I wouldn't want to work somewhere where I wasn't allowed to express my professional opinion in a way that was intended to help the business. Or raise a concern or have a different idea about how things could be done.

Any decent boss should be happy to have open dialogue with their staff and disagreement is par for the course.

You should've been listened to. Not 'dragged through the coals'.

This person clearly doesn't want to hear your opinion so communicating with them further would probably only piss them off even more.

I am the most senior person at work.

I would hate the idea of staff thinking that they couldn't publicly disagree with me about anything. I am not the oracle, I value different perspectives and want to hear different views.

Assuming that you expressed your thoughts in a professional manner, didn't publicly humiliate anyone and weren't just arguing the toss about a decision that had already been made, I wouldn't volunteer an apology. It doesn't really sound like you did anything wrong

The email you propose isn’t an apology, so just leave it. Let it blow over.

if you see the person you argued with in person in the next week or so, speak to them F2F about it. Otherwise, drop it.