The leader forgives first because the leader has control over someone's livelihood. Um, the people who are often asked to forgive in a workplace are typically the people who don't have power. Um, that often falls on black people. 
That burden is often placed on black women, especially. It's so important for any leader to recognize that they have control over another person's livelihood, like whether their family eats or not. And that's why you should go 1st. 
Um, it's also important to consider that like when you're having experiences with people within the workplace, it freezes them in time. It's not necessarily providing them with space to grow and to say, hey, maybe they were sorry. Um, giving someone the benefit of the doubt because that's what you have to extend to people in the workplace. 
It's not that you have to ignore ongoing behavior. If the behavior is ongoing, you're seeing them treat other people like that. That means that they haven't changed and they also aren't good for your culture. 
So you, as a leader, have to take the steps to make sure that that is remedied, by protecting staff. And by filing complaints and by working with HR or whomever is the supervisor of that personnel, especially if it's you. Um, letting them know your expectations. 
But if it's something that happened in the past, um, very important to remember that you are, it's not your choice to decide who that person is. It's your choice to decide how that person treated you. And those are 2 different things. 
Um, What's important is when you're in the workplace itself is that you need to understand that on a day-to-day level, this looks like I don't like working with this person and I may not even trust them. But I will not set them up to fail or overscrutinize them. My fairness extends to whomever, because my role has now required that of me. 
And it's important to know, like, as a leader, as a person with power, that forgiveness is acceptance. It doesn't mean that that person has to apologize for you, um, to you or that that person, um, you need to have some sort of confrontation with that person. Uh, it just means that you can forgive someone without having a close relationship or having the closure of them confessing. 
So that looks like you working with a trusted colleague or a peer, um, to talk through it. A coach, uh, therapist, um, whatever it is that's going to bring you to that point where you can say, I was harmed. I did not appreciate that harm, that harm still affects me to this day, and it hurt me. 
Um, But it's important to know that when you are tapping into revenge in your leadership, it's not just bad for the culture, because of, obviously, like, you can imagine someone who has a vengeance, but it creates unequal workloads, and it makes you make poor decisions, and then you're uh, being having favoritism, and you're excluding other people. And then new leaders will copy that behavior. So, you are responsible for doing the right thing and saying the right thing. 
And while it doesn't always feel good and it doesn't always feel aligned, it is the job of a leader.