In our consulting work, we regularly tell leaders that organizational improvement begins with them, individually and personally. Don’t look down at your employees, we tell them. Don’t look up at your supervisors. It’s all about you.
Is this an ego boost? A pretext for self-importance? Actually it’s the exact opposite. For pointing the finger at others becomes impossible when we acknowledge that problems, difficulties, challenges and setbacks arise only within the culture that we, the leader, created or allowed.
This mindset removes many of the excuses we make for ourselves.
Leaders who attribute failure to others implicitly assume a victim mentality that robs them of the power to achieve positive change. By casting themselves in the role of bystander, they announce that it is employees, supervisors, suppliers, partners (etc., etc., etc.) who hold the real power.
It is often said that leaders must take responsibility for the performance of the system they head. This is true, but misses the point: leaders are already responsible for what happens below them, regardless of whether they acknowledge that responsibility or not.
Leaders not only can shape the performance of their department, division, team or office, they are doing it at every moment of every day.
The question, then, is not whether you as a leader take responsibility for your workplace, but whether you acknowledge the responsibility they already have, and to what degree you are consciously turning that influence to positive ends.
Consider: In what ways might your leadership actions be helping or hindering your employees? What kind of atmosphere are your interactions with them creating? What kinds of messages are being sent by the offhand comments you make? What priorities do your daily routines and habits imply?
The are the kinds of questions asked by leaders who strive to become an active source of improvement in their organization.