Editor’s note: In this post, which originally appeared on the Triad Strategies blog, Rick Kelly perfectly describes the situation Lance Armstrong finds himself in following his doping confession, as well as the opportunities that lie ahead of him should he be up to the challenge.
An Alpine Road to Redemption
This just in: Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France titles were fueled with performance-enhancing drugs.
If that was all there was to it, we could recycle previous posts on Penn State, Tiger Woods, Don Imus and Anthony Weiner, replace their names with Armstrong’s, and once again chronicle the long and winding road ahead of miscreants who seek to restore their reputations after finding themselves at the bottom of the proverbial cliff.
Armstrong’s case is a bit different, however. Not only did he cheat, cover it up and lie about it, he intimidated, bullied and sued anyone and everyone who had the audacity to call him out.
That poultry is already coming home to roost. The Sunday Times of London, which settled Armstrong’s libel suit for several hundred thousand dollars in 2006 after reprinting allegations of his use of PEDs, recently filed suit against Armstrong for more than $1.5 million. The suit seeks to recover the settlement, plus interest and legal expenses.
Armstrong has plopped himself down in the same category as baseball player Ryan Braun, who not only cheated and lied about his use of PEDs, but was a creep about it when he insinuated that the collector of his drug test was not on the up-and-up.
Armstrong’s climb back to the top may make scaling L’Alpe d’Huez seem like a pleasant Sunday bike ride in comparison, but that’s not to say it can’t be done.
Like most of us, Armstrong is a mixed bag of good and bad, triumph and failure, and maybe a couple of demons thrown in to make things really interesting. What weighs him down is the “being a creep” aspect of his behavior – going after journalists, team members and others who were close enough to him to know the truth, as the layers of the onion began to be peeled back regarding the sport of bicycle racing.
If his admission to Oprah Winfrey and his apology to the Livestrong Foundation are more than just legal maneuvers, and if he truly does seek to regain a modicum of public respect, he’ll need to tolerate the immense disappointment that he has brought onto himself, as well as the vitriol that will inevitably be directed toward him by the haters who apparently can only boost their own self-esteem by reveling in the failure of others.
He must, first, be genuinely remorseful. He must apologize, unconditionally and repeatedly. He must accept responsibility for what he has done. Most important, he must demonstrate, over time, that he is no longer the creep that he has been up to this point. And he must accept the fact that he’ll never get it all back.
None of this is impossible, if that’s what Armstrong truly wants, and if he has the strength, character and patience to see it through. Redemption is always a good story, for everyone except the haters.
Rick Kelly directs the crisis communications practice at Triad Strategies LLC, Harrisburg, PA., and blogs regularly on reputation management.