Resign or fix what you broke?
There once was a time where the honorable thing to do if you screwed up was to resign. No more it seems. Times change and to resign is to walk away and admit defeat. Defeat is something our culture doesn’t honor; no-one likes a loser. So you ignore the critics and stay on; you know what went wrong, so you are the best person to fix what you broke. The honorable thing is no longer honorable. Failure is rewarded, and we just carry on as if nothing happened.
The honourable thing is not to resign, but to offer your resignation. At the same time, you offer, humbly, to do what you can to solve the problem. Let the ones impacted by your failure make the choice.
Oh, and if you do stay – you first admit that you made a mistake, and you learn from it.
The problem is ‘common sence’ has established the non-sequitur that the person who broke something is in the best position to fix it and that people who have failed must be more likely to suceed next time (something about learning from their mistakes).
When people used to resign it was on the basis that if you screwed it up last time chances are you’d screw it up next time too. Essentially you’d proven yourself unfit for your position.
The end result is that the more failures you’ve been through the greater your experience and it’s people with lots of experience that we want at the top!