You may not have caused this problem yourself, but it is your job to do something about it, especially when you hold any kind of a leadership or management position.
Management means that you are responsible for everything – whether you personally made the mistake or not – you still have to own the responsibility for fixing them. That may sound unfair or un-fun, but it`s the facts – management comes with its fair share of burdens and ownership and responsibility are two of those.
Every day things go wrong and people make mistakes, and lots of them are mistakes you could easily say as the CEO “are not my fault” but saying that means absolutely nothing, other than to irritate the people around you, especially if you said it to your investors or your Board of Directors or your customers, as they see the CEO as the responsible party for all things the company, and rightfully so! That’s a leader’s job. Whether something is their fault or not is totally and completely meaningless, because as the person in charge, everything is your responsibility. So fault or no fault, leaders have to OWN the responsibility for those they lead. This same principal applies to anyone in management of a company (or pipe band) whether your job is to manage people or your job is to manage projects or processes. You are responsible for everything in your domain of responsibility. If mistakes happen you have to fix them and own them. If mistakes are made by someone else that impacts your area or your duties then you are the responsible person to own those as well. Frankly if you spend your time saying “it’s not my fault” it will be your demise as a leader, because no one cares whether it’s your fault or not, they just need you to be responsible to fix it and own it and make it right.
If you want to be a leader or a manager then recognize that no matter whose fault a problem is your job is to be responsible for it and take charge of fixing it and making sure you setup steps to ensure that it will never happen again.
~Amy Rees Anderson (Get a copy of Amy’s new book here: “What AWESOME Looks Like: How To Excel In Business & Life“)
Hats off to you guys for sustaining a solid online view of what you're all about (and, especially, Amy, here). Maybe I've had a bad work week and, so, sensing a synonymous inter-change of the words - and roles - of "manager" and "leader". In my experience the competent manager, even a good one, is not all that uncommon in the working world - or anywhere. Leader? Hello! Scarce as a chanter reed that will support an easily blown pibroch high G). So, rare.
But more than that, I do think the old leadership axiom is true, "as goes the foxes so goes the hounds". I do believe we need to watch putting it - all that heavy shit -…