Why leaders shouldn’t have to apologize for private remarks

If you’re in a public-facing role, you are likely to get caught up in some kind of “hot mic” event in which an offhand remark said in private gets aired publicly. (Indeed, this piece was inspired by the recent experience of a former colleague.) These events are embarrassing, and they almost always end with a standard—and unsatisfying—apology in which the speaker regrets the remarks and says that they did not mean them. There are cases in which a leader really ought to apologize, or even step...