A key difference between
selfish and unselfish leadership is our posture when things go wrong. And they
will! Few things strike fear in the hearts of staff more than knowing that they
made a significant error. Selfish leaders can be quick to blame those whom they hold
responsible for failures. In fact, selfish leaders love to take credit for
success and blame others for failure. As Jim Collins points out, Level 5
leaders give credit to others for success and take responsibility for failure—a
major difference in posture.
How we deal with failure in our feedback with staff says much about our leadership. When I led a large organization, I popularized a concept called SDR. Now, bear in mind that I led a global religious organization. I remember the meeting where I laid out the SDR concept. It was a large gathering of leaders, and I wanted to get their attention. When I told them what the words meant, there was a moment of silence, shock, and then laughter. They never forget what it meant.
SDR stood for the Shit Disclosure Rule. Stuff hits the fan. Bad things happen! So this is what we meant by the rule. When things are going wrong, or have gone wrong, you must tell us. We know bad stuff happens. We know people make mistakes. We don’t want surprises, so when bad stuff happens, tell us. No surprises!
Our responsibility as leaders, I told them, was twofold. First, we will help you fix whatever needs to be fixed. We are here to help you determine what needs to be done. Not to blame, but to help you solve the problem.
Second, one of our guiding principles was “Autopsy without blame.” This was a commitment to figure out what went wrong and why. And then to learn from the situation so that we don’t experience it again. We would do an autopsy, but it was not designed to assign blame. It was designed to help us learn. SDR allowed staff to engage leaders when stuff went south, and an autopsy without blame gave staff the confidence that we viewed failure as a learning exercise and not a blame game.
This kind of relationship with staff allows supervisors and leaders to provide valuable feedback and collaborate with them rather than simply being their boss and supervisor. It is a major trust builder. Of course, if staff violated the values and commitments of the organization, we would hold them accountable, and on some occasions, that resulted in their dismissal. But that is a very different situation from staff who make mistakes or try something new with unintended consequences.
No organization can encourage new ideas and innovation if it then blames staff for failures. Without failures, we are not trying hard enough to do things better!
