Let people be responsible while doing the work and when they have the results. If you let them work only and take responsibility when something fails, you’re not a good leader. It’s not different from taking all the credit when a project succeeds. You’re taking away all the learning opportunities. Let people own their mistakes. I’m not saying fire them because they made mistakes. Instead, encourage them to learn from their mistakes and even ensure they learn. Coach them to fail early so they won’t get into trouble if they fail too late because late failures usually bring big problems. Early failures enable us to learn iteratively. Iterative learning sticks, and they are effective.
Don’t fire people when they fail. If you fire a person just because they failed, you’re not learning. You’re putting all the responsibility on that person and missing many learning opportunities.
Encourage people to fail fast. The responsibilities have to be balanced. Nobody should have full responsibility, even if they are working alone. Ensure they share the responsibility with the people surrounding them. Look at it holistically and understand how multiple factors and people contribute to the problem. Take ownership of your side and responsibilities, not everyone else’s.
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