Responsibility

#Beingaleader means it’s your fault. You have to take responsibility for the bad things that happen in your group or on your team. This includes errors in judgment, mistakes, giving authority to those who can’t handle it, or any other thing that falls within your purview.

#Beingaleader means you cannot blame-shift. You cannot point fingers and be absolved of the problems. You either provided incomplete information, incomplete training, put the wrong people in charge etc. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t accountability for those who actually made the error. It just means you cannot absolve yourself of taking responsibility for the issue with those who you report to. Your team can hide under you but you cannot hide under them.

#Beingaleader means you should not complain to those people who you supervise. There is a great moment in the movie Saving Private Ryan where the squad is walking through a pasture and they are all complaining about their mission they have been tasked with. Then they asked their Captain why they didn’t hear him complaining to them. Tom Hanks’ character simply replied that “Complaints go up.” What this meant is that he was not going to complain in front of those whom he led. If he had issues with the mission or anything else he would complain to those in leadership over him but would not allow himself to demoralize his team with his moanings or groanings.

This is where #Beingaleader can get really hard. Sometimes you have to take the hit from your boss or client or customer and shield your team from that direct assault. Then you must determine what, if any, of that information or complaint should be communicated and in what way it should be communicated to your team. That takes a thick skin, some discernment on your part, and a lot of Inner Strength (https://beingaleader.blog/2019/02/19/inner-strength/). You need to find a way to let that steam off without it affecting your team.

#Beingaleader is about leading people so you have a lot of personalities to deal with. Along with those personalities comes a lot of different emotions. You taking responsibility and shielding your team from those criticisms can keep their emotions in check and thus keeping the team moving towards whatever goal has been set. At that end of the day, that is what #Beingaleader is responsible for.