Another fine post that, as often, shines a light on something you know when you read it to be quite tangible but couldn't have put into words yourself.

I try to avoid excuses and once had 'discourage a blame culture' as a specific objective. That was achieved by simply accepting the blame myself for anything that went wrong. That included when it was obvious it couldn't have been anything to do with me or my team. Pretty much disarmed all the higher ups on the war path.

The important thing was to get on with identifying the problem and fixing it so it wouldn't happen again. Helping to deliver the fixes usually absolved me of the blame in the end, genuine or not.