Forgiveness

What it looks like

Somebody says something sharp in a meeting and does not come back to it. Two weeks later they need a favor. It is given, and not with a comment attached.

What it costs

A record has uses. Somebody who leads here can give a fourth chance to a person who has shown them three times what they are, and be surprised in the same way each time. Letting go of the grudge sometimes means letting go of the evidence with it.

What Forgiveness is not

It gets read as being soft, or as saying the thing did not matter. Neither follows. This strength is entirely compatible with naming what happened plainly, ending a friendship over it, and still not wanting anything bad to come to the person.

Often confused with

• Kindness

  Both point generously at other people. Kindness gives something; Forgiveness stops holding something. A person can be endlessly kind and keep a very long list.

• Humility

  Both involve letting go of position. Humility gives up needing the credit; Forgiveness gives up needing the account settled.

What a strength does not say

Everybody has all 24 of these. A result puts them in order within one person, so a strength near the bottom of somebody's list is one they reach for less often rather than one they are missing.

That also means nothing here compares one person with another. There is no reference sample behind these scales, and an order made of somebody's own answers cannot say where they stand next to anybody.