Finding positives in the BP negatives …

What’s the value of humility and admitting fault in increasing the power of your own personal leadership?

Incalculable, from my perspective.

If anything can be learned from the steps and missteps in BP’s PR efforts (or lack thereof) … it is that accountability, humility and acceptance of responsibility are important factors in getting people and audiences on your side in a leadership role.

Another good take on this can be found here …

Forbes article …

… and also reinforces the power of taking personal ownership of not only successes … but failures as well.

Understanding the psychology behind one of the great lines from the Forbes article, “where have today’s golden parachutes and the ‘I’m not to blame,’ ‘I didn’t do it’ or ‘I didn’t know’ excuses, gotten us?’ … is that if we have the power to accept personal ownership and personal responsibility for events and outcomes, we have the power to exert more credible and more persuasive influence in a leadership role.

Few people accept the premise of an all-knowing, all powerful, omnipresent leadership style that only is all-knowing, all powerful and omnipresent when things are going well, only to claim “I’m not to blame,” “I didn’t do it” or “I didn’t know” when the chips are down or when things go wrong.

In fact, a well-rounded leader understands that in order to build a bigger vision and rapport, he or she needs to operate from a set of core values that includes integrity, consistency and congruency.

The best leaders lead by not only letting people know “what could be,” they also let them know “what is.”

And if the “what is” is bad or negative, denying that “fact” is evidence the leader is, at a fairly deep level, in denial of “reality.”

So … better to own up, even if it is painful (it is … and always will be).

But the short-term pain in admitting a wrong or a failure isn’t as bad as the long-term consequence and pain of going around the truth or operating from denial of the facts at hand.

As embattled and possibly soon-to-be ex-BP CEO Tony Hayward has so painfully learned (hopefully learned, that is …) over the past two months.

Jodie Shaw