It's Not My Fault

But it's still my responsibility

“Don't find fault, find a remedy.” ~ Henry Ford

Some of us hate—and I mean HATE—being wrong. I mean, no one likes it, but for some people, being wrong attacks our sense of self-worth at a primal level.

For people like this, often the biggest challenge they face as leaders is overcoming this need to throw someone else under the bus when something goes wrong. Leaders who do this teach their teams that their leaders are not trustworthy—we all are one issue away from being thrown under the bus ourselves.

Effective leaders adopt a “it might not be my fault, but it is still my responsibility” mindset. They work to fix the problem and do NOT spend a bunch of time assigning blame.

They give feedback privately to their people, and they focus on the issue, rather than making it personal, e.g. “THIS was wrong, not YOU were wrong.” And the feedback should be aimed at motivating the person and giving them the information and skills coaching to do it even better next time. The mindset is: “All people make mistakes; we’re human. But successful people do what they can to make things right.”

(image source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/henry_ford_121985?src=t_leadership)