I think that’s the most important thing I can offer people — that if something goes wrong, it’s my problem; if something goes right, it’s their success.

This is leadership wisdom coming from Pamela Fields, CEO of Stetson. It is not new. This is one of the first things we are taught by our mentors when we take on our first leadership tasks. Yet, a lot of us forget this. Including me. When we are stuck in a sticky situation, fingers immediately fly to point the blame on others. When something works, we cannot resist the urge to say, "See? *I* told you so."

It only makes sense that as a leader you have to take ultimate accountability if something breaks. If, for example, a service is rendered poorly by one of your associates, it is so easy to put the blame on that person. Sure, that associate will need some performance management but who kept that person there in the first place? Ultimately, everything will fall on the leader's shoulders.

In any organization, everyone must see that if something fails it is the leader's responsibility to take the repercussion and to be the first person to take that challenge head on in order to bring back the team's glory. When the glory is brought back, credits are due to the people under you who made them possible. Not you, as the leader.

Tough, huh? That is why it can be lonely at the top. Especially when the organization is in a middle of a transition (e.g., restructure AKA lay-offs, budget cuts, realignment of an entire product line, realignment of the entire organization's goals). In these transitions, tempers can flare, attrition can spike and morale could go at an all-time low and the top honcho is in the middle of it all.

What advise can I give to leaders? Get a girlfriend/wife, get a life. That'll keep your sanity.

Seriously, you need somebody to talk to (or rant) because you won't be able to do that even with your closest lieutenants. While it is OK for your staff to see you sweat, it is never OK for them to see you throw stacks of paper all over the floor or hear you badmouth non-cooperative people.

And when your outfit succeeds? You champion the individual contributors who made the success possible. There is no point of hinting that this could not have been possible without your "fearless and unwavering leadership" (I just threw up a little right there). You want to make sure that you would be able to tell everyone that, see, YOU guys can do it and actually did it. YOU made it all possible and if another challenge will come up in the future, as I'm sure there will be, YOU can take that challenge, be successful and be the rockstars that you are.

But even as leaders, you also need that self-actualization (remember Maslow?) human as we are. Steve Jobs and other high profiled executives don't run out of praises because the press keeps following them. So their self-esteem are well taken care of. What about you, the lonely middle manager of a company that's not as big as, say, Apple for instance?

That's where your girlfriend or your wife would come in.

Happy Tuesday everyone.

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