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'It's not my fault'
IT S NOT MY FAULT EXCEPT WHEN IT IS The Labour Appeal Court has confirmed that an employer is entitled to distinguish between a senior employee and his her subordinates for purposes of discipline Leadership comes with a range of responsibilities as well as accountability Introduction Sales and Marketing Executive Steve Keating in his recent article https stevekeating me 2019 03 14 its not my fault 14 March 2019 says It s not my fault are some of the most dangerous words a person can string together They cause a ton of damage to your relationships to your ability to lead and to your personal ability to learn and grow They also do not solve anything The most successful people in any walk of life care less about assigning blame for a fault They care more about finding solutions to any problems caused by the fault Keating states that for a salesperson trying to offload responsibility makes you look less like a professional and more like a mere product peddler He also says about leadership that if you have the audacity to call yourself a leader then you must accept the awesome responsibility that comes with it When you re a leader and something goes wrong you definitely can t say it s not my fault Blaming your people for mistakes or problems will damage your credibility with everyone not only the person you re blaming If you represent an organisation and its products or services to customers or clients whether as a sales person or someone in a management position it does not matter whose fault an unsatisfactory offering is the responsibility will fall to you This is not only true in terms of the operational reputation or financial impact on the company but there is also a legal responsibility and accountability which you cannot walk away from The courts This type of scenario was examined by the Labour Appeal Court in Mtshwene v Glencore Operations South Africa Pty Ltd Lion Ferrochome 2019 3 BLLR 219 LAC A refractory technologist had been dismissed for negligence but his subordinate was not disciplined He claimed unfairness based on inconsistent discipline and the CCMA agreed The Labour Court and thereafter the Labour Appeal Court however held the 1
view that the question of the company s obligation to apply discipline consistently could not really be separated from the supervisor s accountability The technologist had faced a charge of negligence with aggravating circumstances in that he had failed to ensure the proper installation of the refractory lining which resulted in substantial financial and production loss to the company The basis of the employee s defence to the allegation that he was negligent was that the contractor was responsible for everything that went wrong with the installation of the refractory lining He made excuses and shifted the blame to the contractor such as that it was not his duty to see to the proper installation of the refractory the contractor s supervisor had to do strict supervision of the welding and installation of the anchors and had to ensure that the anchors were properly installed that it was not practical for him to inspect all the 2000 or 1700 anchors that were installed that he was not in charge of the project but the contractor was and that he could not have been at the kiln in issue for the whole 12 hour period of his shift or be responsible when he was not the one on shift The evidence of the company was that the employee s responsibilities included supervision and advice to the contractor during the refractory lining installations day to day inspections and completing a checklist where he was required to state or tick that he had checked that all the anchors were properly installed The employee s evidence was that he did sporadic quality checks The Labour Court found that the employee could not extricate himself from the substandard workmanship that resulted in collapse of the structure As a refractory specialist he had compiled the scope of work that was supposed to be performed by the contractor in that kiln and knew what was expected to be done by the contractor He ultimately remained accountable for the work that was performed by the contractor and by his subordinate It is clear that the employee had identified some problems with the workmanship but that he had not alerted his supervisor of them and it does not appear that the employee took additional steps to monitor the workmanship at a closer level as a result of the existence of the problems in the workmanship that he identified The court also held that The unavoidable conclusion of the matter is that the installation was not properly monitored for proper work performance If this occurred on Biljon s his subordinate shift then the employee should have picked it up when he was on duty as he was the supervisor and was therefore responsible for ensuring that his subordinates performed their duties as required my emphasis Turning to the question whether Glencore was inconsistent in applying discipline the employee argued that it was unfair for his subordinate to continue being in employment of the company when he was supposedly guilty of the same conduct The court referred to National Union of Mineworkers on behalf of Botsane v Anglo Platinum Mine Rustenburg Section 2014 35 ILJ 2406 LAC where the Labour Appeal Court had pointed out that even if any acts of dereliction of duty were to be proven against any particular subordinate who had no managerial role it was illogical to draw a comparison as regards inconsistency I t would be a paradox if the appellant could legitimately invoke the failure of the very subordinates he was accountable to manage 2
effectively to exonerate or mitigate his managerial neglect by managing them ineffectively There is no room to contemplate the factor of inconsistency of discipline by invoking the probability that no subordinates were disciplined or that it is unknown whether they were disciplined for their infractions The reason for this is that if it is assumed that a cogent concrete basis could be put up to identify which persons acted irresponsibly in relation to their specific functions and responsibilities it would still not be a failure by them to manage the fitment programme and be conduct comparable to the misconduct committed by the appellant In the Glencore matter there was in any event no evidence that in fact the employee s subordinate had been negligent at all in fact the company argued that if this had been the case the employee as his supervisor should have disciplined him Even so the court said Biljon as the subordinate could never have been compared to the employee because they were not similarly circumstanced thus Glencore was entitled to distinguish between them There was accordingly no basis for any claim of inconsistent application of discipline by the company Rise to the occasion Some closing remarks from Keating s article and the wider leadership role One of the major responsibilities of leadership is ensuring the success of the people you lead If you have a person who is under performing in their role it IS your responsibility as a leader Either you re not providing the person with the training and tools they need to succeed or you ve put them in a role where they can t excel Both those circumstances are your responsibility It s not my fault are incredibly destructive words when strung together They limit the potential of the person speaking them Those words together cause the person speaking them to accept their circumstances and walk away from potential growth opportunities Those words when strung together have never been known to solve anything Judith Griessel ________________________________________________________________________________ www griesselconsulting co za 17 March 2019 3