I was speaking with a friend of mine yesterday and she explained a situation that had occurred at work. It seems that the staff had a looming deadline for a report and everyone was working hard to meet the cutoff. When the time had come for the report to be turned in, the staff discovered that the wrong specifications had been given.
Once this was realized, the leader began to berate the staff and managers for doing the work wrong. This is where I have a problem.
A good leader will first seek to understand the situation before jumping to conclusions. This is essential because many times we do not have all the facts to truly realize what has transpired. Leaders know that there are times when the best course of action is to apologize for confusion and agree on next steps to ensure that this challenge doesn’t happen again.
As a leader, do you regularly push pause and self-reflect on your accountability in the situation at hand? Or would you rather point fingers at others? Remember the saying, “Beware of pointing a finger, because when you do there are four more pointing back at you.”
Tags: accountability, berate, communication, good leaders, self-reflect
August 9th, 2010 at 10:16 am
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? How’s it been in Cleveland and have you graduated yet? Miss your blogs. Hope all is well with you and your family.