I learned from the classic Disney movie Bug’s Life, that the first rule of leadership is “everything is your fault.” There’s a bit more to it than that, but it’s not a bad place to start. It’s all about accountability. I love working with people that accept responsibility and embrace accountability. Simply put, it’s really hard to work with the opposite. We’ve all had co-workers that are defensive by nature. It’s almost a knee-jerk reaction to accountability. When they are called into question, they shrug their shoulders and look for somewhere else to “pass the buck.”

I remember early in my career, I had a co-worker that would often confront me. I often felt attacked, and would respond defensively. He would call me on that, saying “Zach, stop being defensive.” This was a valuable piece of self-awareness that I needed in order to grow as a leader.

Fortunately, I spent the formative years of my career in a fantastic IT organization. We were a high-performing team that embraced accountability while remaining blameless when it came to individual failure. We succeed and failed as a team. I single-handedly blew up the data center and didn’t try to hide it. We took that opportunity to learn as a team to prevent that from happening in the future. That created a culture of high trust and high performance.

I’m not a psychologist, but some people seem to have a victim mentality and a defensive reaction to every challenge. Everyone has a different story. I’m always open to learning more about why that is, so I can be empathetic toward their situation. I am a patient leader, but people need to find a way to overcome this disposition. It’s necessary for them as individual leaders, and necessary for the overall group to operate with a healthy culture.

Sometimes defensiveness in an organization is the result of the previous leadership. Organizational cultures take time to change. Defensive people emerge from a leadership style that is always looking for someone to blame. Change the leadership, and hopefully, the defensive behaviors will go away. Trust builds over time, so this process takes patience and persistence.

If you want to advance as a leader, but are defensive, that’s the first thing to focus on developing. You could have all sorts of other amazing leadership qualities, but this one thing can disqualify you. Remember, “Everything is your fault.” You have to say that with a smile on your face, not a grimace. If you grimaced, then you have some work to do. Accountability can be quite fun when you embrace it.