Who gets the credit?

One of the most important aspects of managing a team is recognizing the contributions of the team and sharing credit appropriately. Responsibility and accountability comes from owning the mistakes and failures and not hogging the credit on successes.

It is of paramount importance that the team never gets a feeling that the manager or senior management is not fair in all transactions. One often sees managers socializing based on gender, culture or other interests and it is very important that this be controlled. I remember an episode from the TV serial "Friends" where Rachael takes up smoking to be around with the Boss because her boss and her colleague (who both smoke), keep taking all the decisions when they are at the smoking lounge. I am sure we all have witnessed this in some form or the other at our place of work.

There is no doubt that the manager, being at the helm of the team is the one who is responsible for everything that the team does. (S)he owns the successes as well as the failures, but it is alarming to see managers take responsibility only for the success and point to others when there is failure! Worst still is pointing to the team for the failures, then working with them to fix the failure and take the entire credit for the success!