What to do if you get blamed for someone else’s mistakes

As a faculty member at the University of Texas, I often watch our football team play on fall Saturdays. During last week’s game, there was a penalty on the Longhorns’ defense. The referee called the penalty and mentioned the player who committed the infraction. Watching the replay, it was clear that the penalty was actually on a different player. No big deal, of course, because there was clearly a penalty. But, one player got called out on national television for the mistake of another.

And that got me thinking about the times when someone makes a mistake at work, and then you get blamed for it. Not only can that be frustrating, but it may have implications for your annual evaluation or your job. So what should you do?

The ideal way to react depends on a few factors. One is why people ab