When is it ok to correct someone in front of others when you don\’t want to embarrass them?
I have this tendency to want to be always right. And to show that I know everything. During my obnoxious days, I used to correct someone openly previously. Yet because my social insecurity and social awareness has made me more careful. Embarrassment of someone is something you want to avoid. I don\’t like being disproved in public.
But for example, one of my clients called my teammate by the incorrect name. Is it necessary to correct if it happens once? Twice? Three times? Or is it better to let her realize on her own? One person I had met recently called me by the wrong name, but I decided not to correct him because I thought he would rather have figured it out on his own when other people called me by the right name. Yet a few days later (after I had sent him an e-mail about a discussion we had), he asked me why I didn\’t correct him.
Subtle personality changes? In Dale Carnegie\’s book How to influence people and make friends, he says to let people have their spotlight. If someone is displaying knowledge but it\’s incorrect, then don\’t correct them.
making others look foolish generally only makes you look worse, in that person\’s eyes, as well as any others present. as a rule, never criticize someone in front of a third party.
it\’s okay to know that one is right and someone else is wrong. but to insist on one\’s correctness is a sign of deeper issues that need to be resolved.
carnegie\’s reasons may be manipulative. i\’m presenting a more internal rationale: if you know you are right, is that not enough?
a large portion of the time, it comes down to a difference of opinion, not fact. and insisting that your opinion should be the other\’s opinion when it clearly is not is a huge mistake.
to insist on correctness is different from correcting on the truth. there\’s a fine line then between a mistake that someone wants to have corrected and a showcase of knowledge that need not be corrected.
for example, in a conversation, someone mentions a movie saying it was Tom Cruise that starred, but you know it was Brad Pitt. There\’s no point in correcting this.
But in the case of an incorrect name. Is that a prevention of future embarrassment? Or maybe that person would prefer to find out on their own?
Perhaps pulled aside? And there is a question of stopping one\’s continued embarrassment.