Give Credit Where It’s Due—And Check the Address

Queen Victoria once tweeted, “We are not amused by social media and trust not in its veracity.” Victoria died in 1901 and Twitter was founded in 2006, so the advice to check facts found on social media is true, but certainly not from the longtime British monarch. 

Giving credit where it’s due is an important thing for leaders to do, and it may require a little fact-checking to make sure praise is directed at the correct individual(s). Women in particular often miss getting their earned recognition and may feel urged not to seek it.

A former president had a plaque in the Oval Office that read, “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” Variations on that theme go at least as far back as the U.S. Civil War, and it’s a nice motivational saying, but doesn’t it hint that the speaker thinks they’re letting others take their credit?

It’s kind of bogus, because far too often and far too easily, some people get credit for others’ success. As a friend of mine said, “Historically, that quote should read, ‘There is no limit to what a man can do, or where he can go, if a woman doesn’t mind who gets the credit.’”

It’s only in the last few years that we’ve started to learn about the women in many fields who made significant contributions without getting close to the same recognition as their male counterparts.

For example, many women worked as human “computers” for NASA, making critical calculations that allowed President John Kennedy’s challenge to land on the moon to be fulfilled. If you ask, “Who led us into space?” chances are you’d get responses like Kennedy or astronauts like Neil Armstrong, John Glenn or Alan Shepard. Less likely would be a name like Mary Jackson, one of NASA’s early human computers, later its first African American female engineer, and whose career there began at a segregated facility in Virginia. While Jackson eventually was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal and in 2020 NASA her name would grace its new headquarters building in Washington, D.C. Both honors came after she died.

Sure, she knew what her contribution to the space program’s success was, but why shouldn’t more people have known about her in her lifetime? The guys certainly were.

Did they let someone else take credit for their accomplishments? Certainly not.

Leaders can’t allow themselves to overlook the people who are turning the handles that move their operation forward, laboring away diligently and sometimes anonymously every day.

Make sure they don’t stay anonymous.

Make sure you know who’s really contributing.

Make sure you say, “Thanks,” when it can be appreciated.

Amanda Schleede is founder and CEO of Attend Safe, which helps people attend to life with secure, safe and sensible protocols. Her crisis leadership enables critical events to proceed through safety-conscious protections. By sharing her knowledge in Tuesday Tutor, she hopes others will benefit from her experience. Visit Attend Safe online at AttendSafe.com.