Crediting Others

The last line of my post on Recognizing the Progress (Part 2) was, "When it (the plan) does (work), praise your people as they did the work to get to this point." As a leader, you can certainly keep your own scorecard of successes, but the credit for that success needs to be given to those you lead. No matter how good your plan was and how clearly you communicated, without the team you lead doing the work the success would not be possible. There are two actions leaders take that can demoralize a team more than others. One is to have a team put in hours of work and labor, only to completely discount or disregard that work. The other is to take claim of the success for the team.

A leader, no matter what their title, isn't leading if people are not following. And taking the credit for the work of the team is a sign of a weak leader, and one who is working for their own narcissistic needs instead of the good of the organization. Those looking to simply climb the ladder by taking the success of others are the ones that most people are happy to see leave. And eventually reach their "Peter Principle" sooner than others. Leaders who keep people with them, and attract more people to them, are the ones that take accountability when the plan goes awry, and gives credit to those who did the heavy lifting when things go right.

As a leader, we need to recognize that we are only as good as the people that we are leading. How often in sports do we see a coach be recognized as being great in good reason due to the players they have on the court. From 1997 through 2019, the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich never coache d a team that was below a .500 winning percentage. The last three years he hasn't reached that mark. Does that mean he has forgotten how to coach? Or did the string of NBA Hall of Fame players he coached finally retire, and the talent on his team wasn't that great. Watch what happens now if their overall number 1 pick turns out to be anywhere close to as good as people predict. Popovich has made all these teams better, but he was on top of the world when he had the players to allow his plan to succeed. Over these lean years he would certainly talk about how his team would need to execute better, but ultimately the losses were publicly stated about how he needed to do a better job of setting the team up to succeed.

Privately, with your superiors, it is certainly a good idea to remind them of your plan, how you helped the team execute, and the role you played in the success. That's important for you and your career, but within there also give credit to those who stood out. Allow them to receive the praise and credit they deserve, as it will only serve to motivate them to future success as well.