The Value of a Man

Sometimes, someone needs to say what needs to be said. On Wednesday, Gary Ackerman was that person.

There are two things that I love about this video.

1. Representative Ackerman is saying everything that everyone has wanted to say to these people, holding them accountable for not doing their jobs properly.
2. Watching the SEC folks squirm.

Leaders cannot delegate accountability. When you are put in charge, you get many benefits: higher pay, the ability to tell people what to do, maybe a nicer office, and possibly some more flexibility in your work day. But everything has its price, and the price of being a leader is responsibility. Even if a leader chooses to ingore their repsonsibility, it will eventually come back to collect. Every time.

This is not to say that the failings of a team could possibly be "blamed" on a select few, but my response to that is, "Who's responsibility was it to watch that person and make sure that they did their job?" The answer: the manager.

Unless the employee is engaging in illegal or underhanded activities and is either covering their tracks like D.B. Cooper or is a master Machiavellian, the responsibility always falls on the team leader for that person's performance. Leaders do not have the luxury of pointing fingers when things go wrong; when they do engage in that behavior, they look petty and incompetent.

Take Andy Reid, the coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, for instance. Whenever the team loses, the first thing he says (and the line that he sticks to) is, "I didn't prepare this team properly for the game. The fault lies with me." (And unfortunately for Andy, he has had to make this speech too often as of late.) As the leader of that team, he immediately assumes all of the blame for the team's shortcomings. Donovan McNabb, the quaterback, takes the same approach.

Now, this doesn't mean that behind closed doors, Reid doesn't start screaming at the secondary for their weak pass defense or take the receivers to task for not running their routes properly. If he does, though, it is behind closed doors, and then he focuses on fixing the problem. Like him or not (and he does have his flaws as a coach...where's the Eagles parade?), one has to admire his approach to leadership.

So here is the wake up call: remember that the next time your team doesn't perform up to standard, the next time that they fall short of their goals, ask yourself what you did to make sure everyone was performing up to snuff. Flog yourself for a while. Then fix it.

If I was in his district, Gary Ackerman would have my vote.

I am now going to go back and finish printing materials and stuffing envelopes for the Auspex marketing campaign that gets launched on Tuesday. This is a big week...Auspex is going live!