Recently, my department has been blamed for mistakes that actually originate outside of our team—mistakes we cannot control, at least on the surface.
It is embarrassing to be associated with these errors, and frustrating to be blamed for them. However, the real issue is that this situation makes my department’s work more difficult.
With repeated mistakes, people are losing trust in us. They have started double-checking our work and requesting more justification, which only fuels the assumption that additional mistakes are ours—further increasing the cycle of scrutiny.
Although it’s not explicitly stated in my job description, it is my responsibility as a leader to fix this.