It’s Your Fault, Never Mine
We always hear “It’s YOUR fault”, but how often do you say “It’s MY fault”?
Do you tend to complain, blaming others for the problems you are facing?
In this article, I would like to touch on the important mindset that successful entrepreneurs have and what makes them so special. Let’s look at the 2 general mindset groups that most people have where one will be the employee mindset, and the second would be a problem solver and an entrepreneur.
The Employee
Back in the days when I was still in my corporate job, I felt really unhappy. Anytime something goes wrong I would find someone else to blame for my shortcomings, and that’s not a good practice for us as employees and as humans. It will affect your personal development because you tend to avoid tasks that have a load of responsibilities and prefer to work within your comfort zone.
There are levels of problems that we can sort of put a ranking on. For example, employees are comfortable with problems that are on a scale of level 1-3, but if there is anything higher or even a problem at level 8, that’s when we tend to have the habit of blaming and pushing responsibilities away.
This will take a negative impact on you and will affect the trust given to you by your employer, so what should you do?
Note that you are never alone in the working world. You will have colleagues, partners, a manager or at times a good leader. Always don’t be afraid of asking for help from someone and be honest if mistakes are made because at the end of the day we are all just human.
Show your willingness to improve, and the effort in solving problems because even leaders at times require help when it comes to solving a problem.
The Employer
While we look at the employee side of things and understand the behavior from that standpoint, employers too tend to have this issue. Sometimes it can be even more difficult as you carry a bigger responsibility and blaming others will have a negative impact on your credibility as a leader.
When your employee has a problem, lend a helping hand, guide them through it and not just judge them based on their ability to overcome the problem. If you do this, you show your employees that you, as an employer are able to handle problems that come your way and this will help to instill trust in your employees.
This doesn’t take up much from you and it will help in increasing your employees’ motivation to handle their own problems better and if you come across with problems yourself, your team will always be ready to give you a hand. Plan out a proper SOP for the problems your company frequently face and provide training to your employees to help them improve themselves personally as well as their progress at work.
I’ve been there
Just to give an example, I had a fallout with my business partner that has been with me for over 3 years. It was a painful process, but I had no one to blame other than myself for committing too many emotions into my partnership.
One thing that I learned is even if you are working closely with a partner, or if you are personally close with your partner and employees, never ever blindly trust them. Always have that little bit of self-doubt, just in case. Don’t force the blame on to employees, but instead help them in the problems that they are facing. Know your employees’ strengths and weaknesses so you are able to provide the help necessary in their growth.
You do not want to be a boss of a company with high turnover rate, or one that is constantly running into problems. Focus on improvement, and how to do things better in the future.
Jeremy has been running several online businesses behind his laptop for the past 5 years and he has worked as a freelance web developer previously. A trained marketer by profession, he also has Ruby on Rails and web development knowledge. His forte lies in eCommerce, SEO and content marketing. He’s been featured on Vice, Thrive Global, YFS Magazine, Forbes and several other publications. He prefers to connect with people on LinkedIn.
