“The dog ate my homework.”
“My alarm didn’t go off.”
“I hit every red light on the way here.”
Excuses.
We’ve all made them. But the truth is no one believes them and they don’t help accomplish anything. In fact, they can chip away at one’s credibility.
One of the quotes that has stuck with me from the Global Leadership Summit our team attended last year was from Horst Schulze, the Chairman and CEO of the Capella Hotel Group and Founding President and former COO of the Ritz Carlton. He said,
As leaders we forfeit the right to make excuses.
Perhaps you stepped into an organization with a toxic culture or significant debt. Maybe your board is disengaged or focuses on the wrong details.
Is it going to be easy to turn things around? Nope. But as the leader, people are looking to you (and hired you) to make it better, not make excuses.
We’ve written countless blogs and had hundreds of pep talks with clients emphasizing one of our core beliefs: Leadership is everything. This holds true whether you are the CEO, the board chair or the head of your department. What you do and say matters profoundly to the success of your organization.
When you Google “characteristics of a good leader” you’ll get about 8,250,000 results in half a second. And while I haven’t had the chance to read each article yet, I can pretty much guarantee that “Makes excuses” don’t show up on any list.
So what characteristics DO show up?
Good leaders:
- Hold themselves accountable
- Have the courage to hold others accountable
- Take responsibility
- Are authentic and transparent
- Know how to manage setbacks
- Learn from failure
And the list goes on.
But a common thread is owning what’s real, what’s hard, and having the vision, commitment and honesty to make it better. Own it.
