Hello, Zach on Leadership readers! I took a few weeks off to enjoy some family time and new adventures, but now I’m back at it.

Many have heard the leadership axiom, “Take all the blame. Share all the credit.” It’s good advice. It speaks to the importance of accountability, recognition, and humility. These leadership attributes are very visible. If you have work to do in these areas, everyone around you likely knows it.

I’ve written previously on blame and accountability. I experienced a lot of lessons early in my leadership career that taught me well. Please read this article to see the pitfalls and learn how to address them.

Now, let’s talk about credit.

Leaders are among the most visible people in an organization, so they are often targeted for recognition of success. Most know that they should share the credit, but I’ve seen that go down a few different ways:

1. Some leaders appear like an actor giving an Oscar acceptance speech. They bask in the lights, cameras, and multitudes giving their undivided attention and admiration. Out of courtesy, they mention a few names and teams that helped them achieve their success. It’s nice but nominal.
2. Other leaders receive recognition for success on behalf of their team, and it looks nothing like an Oscar acceptance speech. They go out of their way to clearly state something like this: “No, really folks. It’s not me. It’s the team. They are amazing. It’s my privilege to lead them. I’m just here as a representative of all of their amazing work.”

If given the opportunity, try to be more type 2 than type 1. Everyone will see the difference.

Now that I’ve covered all the right things to do, let’s discuss a more difficult question: What if you’re not even in the room? What if you or your team was completely bypassed in the whole giving of credit thing?

You feel like Tom Brady looking for a high-five but you’ve been left hanging.

It happens. As I’ve observed, it’s not usually due to any malintent. Recognition can be hard to get right, and most people honestly try their best.

The best thing to do is let go of it and develop a better mindset. Before I make those conclusions let me share some background that’ll help.

I’ve spent most of my career behind the scenes. It’s only in the past few years that I’ve been immersed in customer-facing and business-facing roles. Before that, I happily plodded along in the back-office of IT, enabling everyone else’s success.

Roles like that come with plenty of blame when things break, but not a lot of recognition when things go well. I think that conditioned me to work well in large and complex organizational initiatives.

With that, here are some principles that I’ve learned:

1. Consistent performance over time is better than heroic achievements. Heroics are very memorable, but it’s more sustainable to work toward predictable value delivery.
2. Reputations are better than awards. Performance over time earns trust and people won’t forget that they can count on you.
3. Motivation is inherent in the work, and not dependent on recognition. The work we do is worth doing, whether or not any fancy recognition comes along. It’s the satisfaction of a job well done that keeps people going. Any motivation boost from a one-time recognition fades quickly.
4. Servant leaders derive joy from seeing their customers win. We don’t work for ourselves. We are working for others. When they win, we rejoice.
5. It’ll all work out in the end. Nothing good will come from the bitterness or jealousy of missed recognition, but everything good will come around eventually that is seeded by an attitude of humility, generosity, and gratitude.

Some of you may be wondering if something happened recently where I was passed over for recognition and that’s why I’m writing about this. No, that didn’t happen. I’ve just recently observed that some teams have healthy attitudes about this, while others really struggle. I thought I’d write this article to point the way for all.

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