Succeeding in management is mostly about taking credit for successes and avoiding blame for failures. The better you are at doing that, the higher you'll go in a company. With COVID, remote work, RTO, for the last few years it's all been a regular train of plausible scapegoats that management has been able to deflect blame onto.
Succeeding as a bad manager maybe. I’ve had the pleasure of working for three fantastic managers, one being now, over my career. The second I began asking for leadership advice as I was contemplating making the transition at the time. He gave me a bunch of sage books to read but summarized it in one quote from General Dwight D. Eisenhower:
“Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.”
This has been an easy gauge for sussing out whether a new manager deserves my praise or not in the roles that came after. Leaders that embody that have, in my experience, always maintained a loyal, productive, non toxic team where individuals move up more rapidly, as well as the leader, due to the momentum that comes from not having constant turnover and a team that respects and enjoys their mission and mandate.
That's how genuinely good managers behave, but also why there's so few generally good managers.
People do not advance in corporate America by being blame sponges for the people below them. You advance by being a nonstop self promoter and, on occasion, eating blame for your boss.
That’s a great quote. I’ve always said when it works, it’s to our team members’ credit; when it doesn’t, it’s my fault. But don’t rely on just that as a gauge of a good leader. I don’t know that I’m that effective a leader, since I’m not confident I help the team be particularly productive.
