When is it OK to stop taking credit?
Let’s talk about a selfish thing you can do that benefits others.
"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else." – Booker T. Washington
It's understandable to want to stand out, especially in a competitive industry or contentious job environment. Frankly, you're part of an environment that has been fostered before you and now shapes your behaviors. I invite you to answer the following two questions to see if you are ready to rise above what has been curated and stop taking credit.
1) Do you work or own a company where collaboration is encouraged?
2) Are you secure in your contributions, performance, and status where your shareholders or executives know your positive worth?
How you answered the questions only affects your path forward. In the end, you still should be giving away the credit and lifting others up!
Over time, and with the right corporate environment, you can focus on building internal relationships (see my essay on Treating Everyone Like They’re The CEO). By being more collaborative and giving authentic praise, you acutely signal “I’m a welcoming team member” as being part of your brand. You might have to ask, as I did, ‘when do you make the switch from ensuring your actions are known versus ensuring other’s actions are known?’ Simply put, if you come to a point where you ask that question, you know the answer.
How do you do it? It’s not that difficult. Forbes Contributor Bruce Kasanoff wrote an article that offers solid advice around the ‘how to.’ You can find it here.
In it, Bruce goes into detail on five ways to succeed without having to take credit. Here’s a summary listing from his article:
Work quietly in the background
Demonstrate by doing
Encourage vulnerability
Take joy in the success of others
Allow things time to happen
Don’t fake it. As written in a Harvard Business Review Article (link here - HBR), a study by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and mathematician Marcial Losada identified that in organizations, teams with a positive-to-negative ratio greater than 3:1 were significantly more motivated. 3:1 means for every three positive comments, there was one negative one. However, the studies also showed that the upper ratio was 13.1 in organizations where positivity was seen as completely blind optimism, employees found the enthused positivity as annoying and not a correct portrayal of reality. Essentially, it needs to be authentic.
Lastly, let's not be blind. There will be a continuance, for good or bad reasons, of actors trying to position themselves. Thus, I still keep a log of perceived wins and losses. Further, my logging highlights trends of what is working, what is not, time to market, and more. Therefore, logging is not necessarily meant “to show your work” but it is a decent byproduct.
If not already, I encourage you to try intentionally giving credit away. This sharing is a direct motivational boost as well as provides a value and purpose to what you’re doing as a leader. It also keeps your vision alive and aligned.