BECOMING A NO EXCUSE LEADER
By Peter Afen Eneji

Before proceeding to the topic, I would like to give a definition to the key words.
Excuse
They are tools of incompetence, used to build monuments of nothingness, and those who specialize in them seldom accomplish anything. It can also be seen as seeking to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offence); try to justify:
a reason that you give to explain why you have done something bad, or why you have not done something that you should have done.
Leader
Any person or thing that leads or conducts, or one having authority to direct.

Other definitions include; a good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit Arnold H. Glasow, while Mitt Romney says Leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses and Henry Ford states that a leader don't find fault, find a remedy.

Leaders don’t offer, nor do they accept excuses. True leadership demands the character to demonstrate personal responsibility for one’s actions, and the courage to hold others accountable for theirs. Excuses attempt to conceal personal or professional insecurities. They accomplish nothing but to distract, dilute, and deceive. It was Benjamin Franklin who said, “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
The word “excuse” is most commonly defined as: a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense. History’s greatest leaders have always fostered cultures of commitment, trust, and performance, where action is valued over rhetoric. Leaders who issue or accept excuses are complicit to muting performance and fueling mediocrity.
Roman Leadership, one of the greatest in history
The problem we face as a society is we live in a time where he or she with the best excuses wins. Excuses have become the rule, and performance has become the exception – a sad commentary to be sure. However the solution is a rather simple one – I have always said, people will stop offering excuses the minute those in positions of leadership stop accepting them.

People have overcome poverty, drug addiction, incarceration, abuse, divorce, mental illness, victimization, and virtually every challenge known to man. Life is full of examples of the uneducated, the mentally and physically challenged, people born into war-torn impoverished backgrounds, who could have made excuses, but who instead chose a different path – they chose to overcome the odds and succeed.
John Wooden said, “Never make excuses Your friends won’t accept them and your foes won’t believe them”. The great thing about performance is it obviates the necessity of an explanation. In these troubled times inept leaders blame their business woes on the economy, while skilled leaders find a way to thrive.
Challenges and setbacks are opportunities for growth and development, not permission space for rationalizations and justifications. The best leaders not only understand this, they ensure the entirety of their organization practices it.
Here’s the thing – sane people don’t expect perfection from leaders, but they do expect leaders to be transparent and accountable. Accepting responsibility for your actions, or the actions of your team makes you honorable, and trustworthy – it also humanizes you. People don’t want the talking head of a politician for a leader, they want someone they can connect to, and relate with. They not only want someone they trust, but someone who trusts them as well.

One of my favorite quotes is by Edward R. Murrow; “Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.” The fastest way to lose respect as a leader is to focus on optics over ethics. If you are more concerned about political fallout than solving the problem, you have failed as a leader. Even though responsibility for decisions defaults to the leader, responsibility should be a thing of design, not default. It should be readily accepted and not easily denied – this is real leadership.
Amy Rees Anderson of FORBES magazine says becoming a no excuse Leader, we need to practice the Six A’s of a Proper Apology: these are seen as traits of a non excuse leader

Admit - I made a mistake.

Apologize - I am sorry for making the mistake.

Acknowledge - I recognize where I went wrong that caused my mistake to occur.

Attest - I plan to do the following to fix the mistake on this specific timeline.

Assure - I will put the following protections in place to ensure that I do not make the same mistake again.

Abstain – try not to repeat that same mistake twice.

A leader of character takes responsibility no matter the circumstances; a leader of character does not make excuses.
Four Responses of a No excuse leader are
1. Yes, sir.
2. No, sir.
3. No excuse, sir.
4. Sir, I do not understand.
From the forgoing therefore I hope I have been able of effectively treat the topic Becoming a no excuse leader.