It’s a Saturday afternoon. Just went out with Verena to get another Covid booster vaccination. Now watching a fairly old film called “The Core”. Just to relax. And then there comes this quote about leadership that I really like.
Being a leader isn’t about ability.
It’s about responsibility.
You are not just responsible for doing good descisions.
You’ve got to be responsible for the bad ones.
You’ve got to be ready to make the shitty call.
If you’re just used to winning …
you’re not really a leader until you’ve lost.
Col. Robert Iversion to Maj. Rebecca Childs in The Core, 2003
Even though this quote stems from a Hollywood movie it has a lot of wisdom. As a leader you will not always be lucky and everything is working out. You need to be able to make descisions and take the responsibility that your descision may be wrong. As long as you do this based on facts, knowledge and your best intentions no one will condemn you for a bad descision. Assuming there is a good error culture you will be able to learn from bad descisions and become better and better over time.