The only time I heard a country leader apologize

Alexei Sorokin
4 min readNov 11, 2021

I’ve always wondered: do country leaders ever apologize? Every one of them, no matter the country, or the party, no matter how popular they are and how smooth their period in power is, sometimes fucks up. Everyone on this planet fucks up from time to time; surely, leaders make mistakes too. We know they do; in fact, they make mistakes of grandiose scale, by the nature of the job. They go to wars that kill people; they drop bombs by mistake; they mess up economies; they don’t always win against their enemies; they mess up in their personal lives; they make bad hiring decisions; they don’t fulfill their election promises. The list goes on. Surely, there must some nights, maybe many nights when they go to bed unhappy with themselves, feeling like they’re failing.

Or are they instructed by their PR team or advisors, to never apologize so as to avoid any damage to their popularity and position of strength vis-à-vis their opponents?

Or, if an apology is not an option, do they ever express self-doubt or admit feeling vulnerable? Not bold, confident, and assertive, but in doubt and vulnerable? Surely, showing some humility and occasional self-doubt is a sign of emotional intelligence.

I just don’t recall ever seeing any country leader expressing self-doubt, be it in a public speech or just an interview. Not Bush, not Obama, not Biden, not Putin. Certainly not Trump!

Except for this one time.

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Alexei Sorokin

A Russian immigrant in America, father of 4, Cambridge and Harvard Business School alum. I run and write every day. https://runningwritingliving.substack.com/