LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE #8: SEEK RESPONSIBILITY AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS
No one is perfect. Not your Mentor. Not your parents. Not your kids. Not even you. No one!
Things will happen. Good things. Bad Things. Pretty Things and Ugly Things.
That is OK. That is how leaders become leaders. They learn from not being perfect. They learn from their actions. They learn to seek out responsibility. When starting out, an individual that wants to go further, to go higher, to be a leader must be prepared to do what it takes to go further.
By going further, an individual that seeks outs to execute on more opportunities is someone that not only embraces change but also embraces the good and the bad of that change. Sounds a little masochistic but the reward is great. By engaging in more opportunities based in responsibility such as leading a group, taking point on a special project, completing an important report before it is due, escorting a VIP, or showing the new employees the ropes you are more apt to be handed more opportunities to develop and increase your level of responsibility.
When things happen, whatever they may be, your first duty is to take responsibility for your actions. Take the credit where and when credit is due. Yet, you should know that taking responsibility for your actions does include taking responsibility to the actions taken by those you lead.
You lead people, you set the example and you are responsible for what you teach them. How they use, do not use or misuse what you teach them is up to them. It falls on you when they succeed or fail based on what you teach them and by how you lead them.
Taking responsibility early and often, you will not have to worry about the issues of dealing with the failures and mistakes of those you lead for very long. All followers and leaders fail at one point of another, it is expected but when you get ahead of the learning curve, you and those you lead begin to minimize (exponentially & over time) the mistakes they make, sooner.
Thanks,
David G. Guerra, M.B.A.
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