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Peter Drucker taught us to feed strengths and ignore weaknesses (well, maybe he used different words). This advice is easy to understand, but difficult to implement.

For one thing, if you are a leader faced by incompetence or mistakes, your first instinct is not compassion. You need stress relief, and you take out your frustrations on the hapless co-worker who did not meet your expectations.

Perhaps you don’t want to face the fact that you did a poor job of delegating in the first place. Perhaps you are embarrassed because you committed yourself while depending on your co-worker to deliver.

Yes, you must hold your co-worker accountable for their part (for misleading you or just being plain clueless), but do not ignore your part. Otherwise, you have just assured that history will repeat itself for you.

Don’t forget, while your co-worker may be remiss in their duties, you have to build on your strengths and avoid your weaknesses as well. One of your weaknesses may well be dealing with your or your co-worker’s weaknesses.

Don’t over analyze, just start by being mindful.