Every organization I work in, there is at least one manager, leader, or coach that blames members of their team for failures when the team does not hit goals, wins, etc. This is an interesting conundrum as the most important job of any manager is picking the people for their team and then working to maximize the ability the of the team members. So what does it look like when a manager blames a team member?
The answer to this should be rather apparent, the manager has not correctly staffed or enabled their team and the failure is upon the manager instead of the individual members of the team in most cases.
A common reason for a miss a manager will say is that someone on the team was out of commission due to sickness, vacation, or life and that impacted the success of the team. While a team member out of commission does have an impact, this should also have been expected as a normal occurrence by the manager and planned into staffing the team. Of course, sometimes if the cost of adding the extra capacity is more costly than the team failing slight more often, then it may not be worth it.
Another reason I frequently hear from managers is that the organization has asked to much of the team. However, if the organization uses a top down management style and has asked for to much, it is up to the manager to proactively communicate the problem and the risks associated with doing so: missing goals, increased burnout, and so on. The manager also has the chance to push back for a more bottom up approach explaining what the team can reasonably accomplish and negotiate the items with the rest of the organization.
And sadly, the most common reason I hear from these managers is that the members of their team are not smart enough to do the work and they have to constantly correct everything or do it themselves. This really speaks to two points, the first is that the manager has failed to correctly staff their team, but it also points to how the manager has failed to step back and delegate to their team. By constantly intervening in what each person on their team is doing, the team become limited by the time and capabilities of the manager.
Ultimately when a manager blames their team for failures it just reflects back on their own capabilities of a manager. When a manager steps up and own’s their teams failures and puts forth their plain of how to improve to prevent the problem from occurring again, they come off as significantly more capable and confident. So Managers, take responsibility and own it.