My Success, Your Failure

When the project succeeds, it’s because of the leader’s clear direction. When it failed, the team didn’t execute properly. When retention improves, the leader has created the right culture. When people leave, they weren’t a good fit. When the product shipped on time, the leader kept everyone aligned. When it was late, the team didn’t communicate effectively.

Performance improves, metrics rise, stock prices climb. Executives collect bonuses for outcomes their leadership caused. Performance declines. Market conditions, unforeseen circumstances, forces beyond control. No callback, no penalty.

The same pattern. One plays out in daily practice, the other is institutionalized in compensation. It’s your doing when things go well, someone else’s fault when they don’t. All upside, no downside.

The pattern only works if nobody names it. It requires an assumption about causality that everyone accepts, but nobody examines.

You could give it up.

You could take the bonus when things go well and the clawback when they don’t. Or you could recognize that most outcomes are the product of variables over which you have no control. That means giving up both the credit and the blame.

But that would require admitting you have far less causal power than the role suggests you should have.

The traditional model persists because it protects people from this exposure.

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