Good leaders take the blame and share the credit.

- A short thread.

March 2017.

I was leading a firm in Johannesburg and got a call from one of our big clients in Cape Town that our team had messed up a major deliverable.

I rushed to Cape Town the next day to try and salvage the business. Unfortunately, the client fired us the following week.

I got back to the office in Joburg and went crazy. I called everybody to the conference room and read the team responsible for the loss the riot act.

Then I called the head office in Paris and told them that I messed up and lost the client.

Note: I told them "I" messed up.

A few days later:

The same team got a chance to bid for another business. We worked together on this pitch. I created most of the slides and presented a significant portion of it.

This time, we won the business.

That weekend we had a party for the team. I made sure that everyone else heard about their awesomeness.

Helen, Thabo, and Tina were the stars of the day.

My weekly report to Paris said, "The team did such a great job on the project and got us the win."

They got ALL the credit.

In my view, the ONLY way to win the confidence of your people is to take the BLAME when something goes wrong and SHARE the credit when something goes right.

When your team gets the credit it flows down to you too. But when you try to steal the credit, you lose their confidence.

Leadership is an art.

But the most important element of good leadership is winning the heart of your people.

You must win the HEART before you ask for the HAND.

And the only way to do that is to share the credit.