“Leaders own the process/plan and any bad results. The team owns the good results”

In regards to owning the process/plan, nothing starts and nothing changes without someone leading.   A vision has to be present, then a plan/process, and then the team must be sold on why it makes sense.  Smart teams do not buy-in to bad plans/processes.  In fact, when a leader feels that the team is not behind the plan there is one of two things wrong.  Either the plan stinks, or the team has been too mired down in what they are doing to be receptive to change.    Regardless, pessimistic reactions should be paid attention to, and the best thing to do when this happens is to get 2^nd and 3^rd opinions from other leaders that have been faced with similar issues.  Then it is time to adjust and move forward.

As a rule about results, the team always owns the good and we own the bad.   We always own the bad because we have the authority to change anything about the process/plan along the way, and if the results are poor it is because we did not do our job in changing the necessary inputs (people/process/plan).   If the results are good, it is a result of buy-in, and awesome execution by our teams.   Without the team executing, any plan/process is dead on arrival.  They deserve all the credit for winning.   Leaders are also part of the team of course, and do need to take some credit because teams like to see their leaders excited as well. We just cannot get too caught up in it because there is always another plan waiting to be formulated/executed, and it is our job to continuously drive the growth and development process.

One thing we must remember is that there are no excuses at the Leadership level.  For example, one cannot say they have a bad team if they are the ones in control of who is on the team, and one cannot say they had a bad plan to work with, if the plan was their creative and unrestricted work.   These are excuses that are not really allowed in Leadership.  We of course make mistakes, and when we do, we admit them as soon as possible so that we can change directions and turn the momentum in a positive direction.