[April 18, 2016] Geez, you would think that with so many senior political leaders running for high office that they would know the first rule of mature leadership … Rule #1 … never blame the other guy for failures where you have responsibility. Everyone knows that leaders don’t personally do everything and that their job is to provide leadership. Why is it then, that every politician is intent to blame any perceived failure on others?
That begs the question whether political leadership is somehow different than all other forms of leadership. We could ask whether there is some fundamental dissimilarity when politicians are involved as opposed to others in the commercial or military sectors. In fact, I’ve been asked about political leadership on several occasions and in the past I had some trouble answering people’s concerns about it.
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. Army General and 34th U.S. President
Leadership is about people and that means that leaders must understand human psychology from experience (not from a textbook) and apply those principles to get people to rally to a common cause and create unity. Politicians are able to do just that. Yet, blaming others seems contradictory and, not surprisingly, it is a problem that politicians run into time and again. Politicians would do better if they didn’t point their finger at others to blame. For leaders, that means they accept full responsibility for what does nor does not happen.
“The buck stops here.” – Harry S. Truman, 33rd U.S. President
Leaders would do well to absorb this quote from Truman. Leadership means accepting responsibility without reservations. Only great leaders understand that shifting the blame actually makes them weaker as a leader, never stronger. We call that, “passing the buck” and it’s contagious. My grandmother always told me that when I point my finger at someone else to blame, that I should always remember that the other fingers are pointing back at me.
Leaders should be giving credit to those who deserve it, not blaming others. Blaming others means you’re avoiding some truth about yourself and followers are quick to pick up on that truth. This will manifest itself as others become less risk averse because they fear failure, fear being underprepared, fear being wrong, and fear being unpopular. This is the beginning of a leadership death spiral and should be avoided at all costs.
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