My First Axiom for Leadership

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I recently had the opportunity to attend the Leadership Summit which is hosted by Willow Creek in Chicago. Our church is a satellite site for this event each year, and I found the experience very inspiring. Bill Hybels was one of the keynote speakers at the event. During one of his addresses, he introduced his latest book, Axioms, which I promptly purchased.

Bill defines axioms as leadership proverbs. In his book, he outlines about 76 axioms that he has come up with over the past 3 decades that are key ideas or thoughts for effective leadership. Each of these axioms are captured in simple phrases or proverbs that can be easily remembered and repeated. The concept is quite powerful.

During his teaching at the conference, Bill outlined one leadership principle that really rang true to me for effective leaders. As I did not find an axiom in his recent book that succinctly relates this idea, I've decided to come up with my own axiom to describe this key point in effective leadership. It is as follows:

Success Shared. Blame Beared.

The basic idea behind this axiom, or leadership proverb, is that to be an effective leader one must be willing to share credit with his/her team while at the same time take personal responsibility when things don't go according to plan. My feeling and experience is that leaders mastering this skill will find themselves surrounded by a team that is 'sold out to their cause' (whatever that might be). In my opinion, this is a key factor in effective leadership.

Unfortunately, it seems that as leaders we mess this up far too often. It's so easy to want to pin the success of a specific outcome to our chest or place the blame on the team when something doesn't go right. If you find yourself in a leadership position, try to remember this little axiom. I think it will serve you well.