This past Wednesday morning, Nancy Targett, Acting President of the University of Delaware tweeted that the University of Delaware police are “investigating a hate crime. We need to stand together against intolerance. Call 831-2222 if you saw anything.” Later in the day, however, she released a campus-wide message that stated in part, “Earlier this morning I sent you an email about a student finding what was believed to be three nooses hanging from a tree in front of Mitchell Hall . . . it has been determined that the three noose-like items found outside Mitchell Hall were not instruments of a hate crime, but the remnants of paper lanterns from an event previously held on The Green. . . .” This incident, as reported in The Wall Street Journal, resulted in numerous comments questioning her fitness to lead. I suspect it’s safe to say that she will not be a successful candidate for the permanent position.
While most of our mistakes do not make the national media, there is a lesson in this for all of us. It has become exponentially easier in today’s society to have our ill-advised actions reported for all the world to examine. In a way, my heart goes out to Dr. Targett. The political pressures on campus leaders are tremendous and unfairly so. That said, taking the opportunity to investigate more thoroughly before tweeting would have saved her considerable embarrassment.
Sadly, leaders, managers and supervisors increasingly work in environments that are unforgiving of what, in the past, would be considered well-meaning mistakes. Combining the pressure of societal impatience with the demands for political correctness can result in a recipe of fear and poor decision making. We should all just take a big breath and think before acting regardless of the pressures around us.