From this practice comes the modem word "scapegoat," which Webster's Dictionary defines as, "A person or thing bearing blame for others."
If I may use the word as a verb, "scapegoating" is the practice of blaming others for our failures. In career terms, there is far too much scapegoating going on in the world today.
Let's face it, the most successful people are those who have the ability to stand outside themselves and objectively assess how good they are at one thing or how they are lacking in another. Unfortunately, there are not as many truly successful people as there could be.
Instead, people find scapegoats to blame for their failings. It is, after all, much easier to blame a bad boss or inept employees for problems. It's probably just human nature to do so. But scapegoating is unproductive. Worse, it's a hindrance to a successful career.
The only productive stance to take is to openly acknowledge that there are problems and to assume that the fault lies with all concerned, including yourself. Realize next that what you can do to change other people is very limited. On the other hand, you have full control over your own actions.
Whether or not you have the degree of self-honesty that's needed to acknowledge your failings and take action is another matter altogether. When people get into problem situations in their careers, they frequently get into a paranoid state of mind from which it is very difficult to get out. The aura of suspicion that hovers over the situation makes honest communication -with yourself as well as with others - virtually impossible. In the process of blaming everyone around them, people fail to see a much greater truth - that they would probably be better off working somewhere else or doing something else. As a result, people do not act on their problems until the problems have gotten out of hand. Most firings or resignations occur at least six months after they should have.
In fact, it's one of the saddest things I see in my career consulting practice: The person who blames all kinds of external forces for his or her problems rather than looking inward.
Why do people find scapegoats? Perhaps, as I said earlier, it's human nature. More likely, it's lack of self-honesty and lack of confidence. And as much as anything, employers hire confidence.
Confidence and self-honesty go hand in hand. After all, if a person is good and knows it, he or she is merely stating a fact and can't be held at fault for stating it. What's more, confident, honest people waste little time with scapegoating. They're too successful for that. If you are a manager, you have no doubt interviewed this kind of person, and more often than not, you have actually perceived such a person as being rather humble.
Conversely, you've probably interviewed people who let you know how good they are, but also spent a good deal of time scapegoating - blaming everything and everyone but themselves for the problems they had with previous employers or co-workers. You probably perceived these people simply as braggarts.
People who are honest and confident need no scapegoats. Those with internal image problems and lack of confidence will always find them somewhere.
Here's a case in point: Many years ago, a man came to us with a severe confidence problem. We encourage people to move strongly in making contacts and to go out and present themselves, something this man, because he lacked confidence, did not want to do. Naturally he had great difficulty finding a new job using the methods we teach, because he didn't use them. And lo and behold, we became his scapegoat. He couldn't find work, he claimed, because the methods we had given him didn't work.
He clung zealously to this belief for a long time - two or three years as I recall - and our relationship with him was often acrimonious at best.
Finally, as if in a single revelatory burst, he realized that he was blaming something other than himself for the fear he felt and that as long as he continued to do so, his career would go nowhere.
With his scapegoat cast aside, his confidence level soared. He found a new - and much better -job in short order
Think about this the next time you find yourself unhappy in your career and you blame others for your unhappiness. Take that energy you waste in scapegoating and devote it to learning something you don't know about yourself.
It could be your pathway to career happiness.
