---
status: "published"
title: "Giving Credit and Taking Responsibility in a Team"
date: "2018-09-12"
description: "Whether we succeed or fail, it helps to know how to best represent our team in front of upper management or clients."
image: "https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3e56c987-b2db-47b6-a403-682a78f253a9"
imageAlt: "silhouette of people by Tobias Mrzyk on Unsplash"
author: "Vlad Sabev"
authorUrl: "https://github.com/vdsabev"
authorAvatar: "https://github.com/vdsabev.png"
tags: ["personal responsibility","psychology","teamwork"]
navigationIndex: 0
---

"silhouette of people" by [Tobias Mrzyk](https://unsplash.com/@tobiasmrzyk?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral)

Speaking from personal experience, it's too easy to fall into the trap of putting our colleagues on a pedestal when they succeed, think less of them when they fail, or otherwise unwittingly participate in creating and sustaining what I like to call "office politics".

I actively try to counteract this phenomenon by giving as much credit as possible to **my colleagues**, while framing as a **team effort** those contributions I could otherwise claim to be mine alone.

Conversely, I try to **have a teammate's back** when they make a mistake, while taking **personal responsibility** when I myself screw up.

## 📑 Examples

Whenever I've done something by myself I try to say this:

> *🔴* When **I** make a mistake → "**I** made a mistake"
> 
> *🔵* When **I** accomplish something → "**We** accomplished this"

What about a specific colleague of ours — let's call them Alex:

> *🔴* When **Alex** makes a mistake → "**We** made a mistake"
> 
> *🔵* When **Alex** accomplishes something → "**Alex** accomplished this"

Finally, if we happen to be the team lead we could say something like this:

> *🔴* When **the team** makes a mistake → "**I** made a mistake"
> 
> *🔵* When **the team** accomplishes something → "**They** accomplished this"

## 🤔 What good does this do?

Whether it comes from inside or outside the team, blame erodes trust. Some people will subconsciously blame others for failures, even when they say they don't.

To minimize this affecting our colleagues, we can try to take all negatives upon ourselves — especially in a leadership position, both our team *and* our managers will respect the fact we're taking responsibility for failures instead of throwing someone else under the bus.

Similarly, they'll respect the fact we give others (but not ourselves) credit — we all subconsciously know a team's success is also the leader's success anyway, we might as well be humble about it 😉

## 👣 Further steps

In addition to owning the mistakes we make, it's also important to transition from blame to responsibility — blame is in the past, while responsibility is in the present.

To do this, we can also outline the *next steps* we'll take to either amend the issue, or prevent it from happening again.

> Saying sorry is not enough — make sure it doesn't happen again.

Finally, while covering for other people's mistakes in front of management or clients is commendable, giving our team feedback in private is crucial — after all failure is only valuable when we learn from it!

## 💭 Your thoughts?

Anything else you'd like to add? Has someone had your back when *you* made a mistake? Or gave you credit when they didn't have to? Did this make a difference for your team?