It takes a lot of courage to say "It's my fault"...

For all those people that watched Super Bowl 49 and subsequent post game interviews since last night, you might have heard this sound bite no less than 100 times.... "Its my fault".  Seahawks coach, Pete Carroll, immediately and fully owned the last offensive play call that costed his team a Super Bowl win. He took full accountability for the outcome.  He didn't think twice and didn't dance around and try to find someone else to drag down with him.  That's a true display of courageous and true leadership.  Forget about which team we rooted for, that's a lesson for all of us to take away from last nights game - "Take full accountability for your decisions no matter what the outcome might be".  

We see these type of situations many times in our everyday business environment.  As professionals and leaders we make many decisions everyday, some small and some big. Regardless of how thoughtful and careful we might me, some of those decisions will go wrong.  When decisions produce good outcomes, everyone steps in and tries to associate themselves with those decisions. But when they go wrong, especially when they go wrong big time, some people just disown their decisions, find excuses, or tries to drag down someone else with them.  True leaders take full accountability for their decisions regardless of the outcomes.  They inspire others around them to take full accountability for their actions and they create a safe environment to do so.  Teams become high performing and create great outcomes in those safe environments where everyone takes personal accountability for their actions. 

In addition to an exciting Super Bowl game, Coach Carroll demonstrated a great leadership lesson to millions of folks that tuned in to post game last night!!!