When you arrive at the office each morning, you find yourself in a blame-free zone. Your team attacks projects proactively and with confidence. When a problem arises, everyone involved “owns it” and takes corrective action. The same holds true with every employee, in every department—and then you wake up.

Yep. Instead of facing the workday with excitement, most leaders want to crawl back under the covers from sheer dread of what actually awaits them at the office: excuse making, blame shifting, and responsibility dodge ball. The underlying culprit, however, is something you might not suspect: fear.

As I point out in my book, Leadership Isn’t for Cowards (Wiley, 2012), an organization that has perfected the blame game is one where hidden fear—fear of failure, of confrontation, of difficult tasks—runs rampant. And guess where these kinds of energy-draining, counterproductive cultures originate? That’s right: with the leaders.

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