It's OK to be blamed for your co-worker's mistake business woman man couple dispute conflict silhouette. WHEN Adrian was blamed for his co-worker's $50,000 mistake, he had two choices. He could tell his superiors that it was really the fault of the new guy, who made a careless trading error. Or he could take the fall. Adrian, a manager at a Melbourne-based finance firm, decided to cop it on the chin. "Based on the fact that I'm the manager, I knew that my bosses wouldn't like it too much that this new person made the mistake, so I just took it," he said. All said and done it was probably 20 per cent my blame and 80 per cent his mistake because it was such a rookie mistake he made and he'd had a few years' experience. But I did delegate the job to him so for me to take the full wrap was just easier. Adrian is not alone. Every working person gets blamed for other people's mistakes at some point in their career. Your first instinct is to tell your boss who was really at fault. But organisational psychologist Travis Kemp says if you take a step back you may realise you have a lot more to do with the problem than you want to admit to yourself. "It would be nice if mistakes were so black and white and there was an obvious reason why mistakes were made but there never is," Dr Kemp said. The reality of most mistakes is that there are multiple factors and multiple people involved, it's rarely a single person's fault. When people feel like they've been exposed as incompetent or are being held solely responsible for something that's gone wrong, they tend to want to share it rather than own it all themselves. The reason you tell your boss a mistake is another person's fault is to save your own reputation. But telling on your colleagues often has the opposite effect. A lot of people think they're taking the heat away from themselves. But as a leader I'm thinking regardless of the truth you're not taking responsibility for anything," Dr Kemp said. As a leader I want my people to be taking responsibility and taking action. I'm going to look much more favourably on people who can say this has gone wrong, this is how I contributed to it and this is how I can solve it. Organisational psychologist Peter Langford says that there are times when the mistake is so bad you have to speak up to protect your reputation. If the error is significant enough you're going have to. It's walking the fine line of not coming across like you're blaming people but making it clear it wasn't your fault," Dr Langford said. You also have to pick your battles. And if you let little things slide, you will win respect from other colleagues who know you don't expose people's mistakes. There is some benefit from copping some of it on the chin when some people know it wasn't your fault. That will come across as quite a noble act that you've absorbed some of the responsibility when really it wasn't your fault. Have you ever been blamed for a co-worker's mistake?