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Add to FavoritesNo. Leadership should hold staff accountable for errors they commit while doing their work. Staff should take the blame for their own mistakes. The company should support any distressed workers facing consequences of their wrong actions at work.
An error by definition is a wrong action that can be traced to bad or poor judgment, ignorance or lacking attention. The result of an error can be devastating especially if peoples' lives are involved. It is my view that the person who caused the error should own up to it. Leadership should stand with the employee to the extent that such a fault may have caused far reaching damages, not to lift the blame from him but to show the employee emotional and other humane support.
For this reason industry places some emphasis on error control measures. With good control, errors can be minimized. It has to be understood that errors are human. One feels sorry for people who make certain "gross" errors that end up in court.
To the extent that control measures are in place for each job assignment, most errors should be noticed and corrected by the control system or person.
It is important to explain my understanding of leadership and staff roles.
There are several layers of leadership in an average company, but it is clear to me that we are not talking about general leadership here. Although management is leadership I take it that we are referring to senior leadership and the company spirit.
The lowest level of leadership includes team leaders and supervisors who oversee the activities of laborers, technicians and clerical staff or production teams. The next level is middle management proper. These oversee supervisors and may in fact include supervisors, depending on the size of the company and nature of the industry, while senior management is a distinct layer. This is the level, I suggest are the "leadership" referred to above.
When we say this company is good, we refer very much to the spirit of the collective, usually a reflection of the top directors and their policies which trickle down through management to production teams.
Visually, senior or top management includes the Board and executive directors of the company. They control company policies, resource mobilization and direct allocation of these resources including staffing in the company. They also appoint middle management. So, when we speak of leadership we include those who may not even know how to use the tools of this industry, people whose specialty may be finance or administration or indeed may hold investment portfolios.
I separate the leadership from the staff who are at the desk or "coal face"; the technical staff and the clerical staff who do the "donkey work," the digging, pulling and other menial tasks. (Menial tasks are not necessarily insignificant. They make the company what it is.) There are tasks for skilled and for unskilled workers, tasks for specialized workers and so on and so forth.
Here is an example: A nurse is taking a ward round in the morning. She administers a drug to a patient using someone else's drug sheet. The patient gets a visible reaction. Who should take the blame for that? Should the hospital Superintendent take the blame? I don't think so.
Take the train driver who falls asleep and runs a red light, resulting in a train crush. Who should take the blame? Should the General Manager of the Railway Company? I don't think so.
Causes of staff errors can be placed in one of two very broad categories: those resulting from lack of skill and those that happen in spite of having the skill. Those resulting from lack of skill must be blamed on poor Leadership who employed incompetent people in the first place. Leadership can be blamed for employing people who are unqualified to do that work. Every mistake they make should be placed on management's table.
The other type of error can happen to anyone who does some work. On a given day, things can slip out of one's hand. No matter how many error controls are in place, it is human to err. The blame should not be shifted, but support for the person making the mistake should not be taken away either.
Learn more about this author, MacDonald Chaava.
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Yes
If you are in charge then you are accountable. It's that simple. In this article I use a software development project, with me as the buyer, as a case study, but the same lessons apply in any other field.
To me at least, the only project manager worth his/her salt is the one who will do anything to get her/his project done. Gene Kranz (mission control for Apollo 13) put it best: "failure is not an option". If you expect to get a major piece of software (or accomplish anything else worth doing) done you better have a can-do attitude. You better know how to identify problems, you better be decisive about fixing them, you better be ready to do what it takes, and you better have the ability to inspire the project team to do the same.
If you are on the other side of this debate then you are looking for excuses. Excuses are like troubles, if you look for them, they will find you. You are getting paid the big bucks to deliver, not to make excuses. I am not paying you to make excuses. I can get those anywhere. Before we started, you agreed that you could get the project done with the staff, time and money I gave you. I delivered. I expect you to do the same.
Sound harsh? Of course it is. Get over it. Explaining to me that I have just spent a couple of million and two years waiting for something I have to have to run my business and it's not ready because one of your staff made a mistake will not be a pleasant conversation. Make sure your staff don't want this conversation with you as much as you don't want to have it with me.
If one of your staff make a mistake it may not be your fault, but you are responsible so to me, the client, it IS your fault. I see you. I don't see all the people on the team. Seeing them is your job that's why you get paid more than they do.
Maybe you shouldn't have hired them. Maybe you didn't train them. Maybe you didn't lead them. If you put a junior or inexperienced person to write a critical piece of software and it comes out bad then it is your mistake even more than the staff member's mistake. Getting the right people, understanding what they can and can't do and then making the optimal assignments is part of the science of project management.
The project team will have the same sense of purpose as you. If you look for excuses, so will they. If you have a can-do attitude that can overcome obstacles and get the job done they will too. If you can inspire the team to get the job done, no matter what, then you have moved past the science of project management and into the art of leadership.
Being the leader has its good points. Mostly, you get the credit. Sure, you share this with the team, but it's something you can feel good about. With the credit comes the responsibility if things don't work out. Blaming others is an exercise in futility. Nobody ever got anything useful done by blaming someone else.
If you let your staff take the blame you may be a manager, but you are not a leader.
Learn more about this author, Thomas Schipani.
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