“Failure is your responsibility. Share the credit, take the blame, and quietly find out and fix things that went wrong.”

Colin Powell

Failure isn’t something that happens to you; it happens for you. If you blame others, you push the responsibility away from yourself and take away your opportunity to learn, grow, and lead.  

I am sure that we have all known bombastic people who yell and scream when things don’t go their way. But, unfortunately, they generally aren’t people who can “quietly find out and fix things that went wrong.” Perhaps they never had a positive example of effective leadership; maybe the only thing they know how to do is assign blame and point fingers. Sometimes these types are even quite effective at producing results, at least temporarily. However, I would argue that if one spends their time pointing fingers, sooner or later, they will find themselves with no one to point at except themselves. 

Where have you failed, and what are you going to fix today quietly?