Recently I was reading an article on INC entitled ‘The Difference Between Managers and Leaders‘ by Ilya Pozin where he provided some fantastic insights. Ilya’s fifth point was this:

‘Managers want credit, leaders credit their teams’

This is a brilliant point. When it’s acted upon the impact that it has on the leader’s connection with their team, the trust that it engenders, and the respect it earns the leader is huge.
What was really interesting to me though was one of the comments from a reader.

‘How do I give credit when I answer to the MD without my staff present; how will my staff know?’

This is actually a great question which prompted me to stop and reflect on how I have actually gone about this during my leadership career. So, here are my personal and very practical tips to do this.

1. They will just know…
Here’s the key thing. If you start from a position of genuinely wanting to support your people and ‘give credit where credit is due’ then you will naturally credit you team whenever you can. By consistently crediting your team to your boss, your peers, your customers or whoever it may be, these people will eventually come back to your team and say something like this…

‘Hi John. Ben told me about all the work you put into that proposal – great job and thanks’
So you see – they will just know.

2. Reactive email
When you get that email from your boss saying ‘thank you’ or ‘great job’ why not respond, cc’ing your team or the individual, saying something like…
“Thanks Nigel but it was actually Gemma who did all of the hard work on that project so she really needs the praise. Well done again Gemma and thanks.’

3. Proactive email
Instead of waiting to redirect the credit to your team why not be proactive by sending a thank you email to your team and cc’ing your boss.

Read the rest here: http://www.successful-blog.com/1/6-ways-to-credit-your-team/