A good leader takes credit and gives criticism.
This makes the most sense given that the leader has to motivate his team to get the work done. Being the leader also means they are the best at what they do so they give criticism to help their team get better.
I don’t know about you but I enjoy working for a leader who takes all the credit and freely gives out criticism.
At this point you have either quit reading or have thought I lost my mind. I definitely don’t believe the above are the characteristics of a good leader.
To me a good leader takes responsibility and gives credit.
Recently I just experienced this with my painting business. I went against my better judgement and hired a sub-contractor to do a project that I wanted nothing to do with. Long story short they did about half the work and most of it was wrong.
I could have either blamed the sub-contractor for doing shoddy work or take responsibility for making a bad hire. As HR says I “let the guy go” and took steps to get the work down the right way.
There’s no point in wasting time blaming your team when a project goes haywire. Yes, your crew will make mistakes but ultimately the leader has to take a look at themself and see if they could have lead better to help avoid this issue.