Lack of Accountability
Watch out for people who do not hold themselves accountable for their actions.
If someone don’t have the humility to frequently look at themselves,
review their own actions,
identify whether what they did was wrong and take responsibility for it by holding themselves accountable for it,
and then have the humility to apologize for it,
they will never be able to grow.
If they are unable to grow, it means they will never be able to improve, and there can be no progress.
They will be stuck in the same spot. In the same patterns. The same mistakes.
While the rest keep moving forwards.
The distance between them and others will keep increasing, and they will be an anchor dragging and holding you back.
It could be that they are able to say “sorry”, but it never comes to that because they are either not able to properly judge their own actions objectively, or that they fall into victimhood and blame everyone, and everything, but themselves.
Either way, the result is the same for the people around them. They are facing someone who cannot admit a mistake, own it, learn from it and grow.
Plausible Root Cause
The root cause could be a high degree of insecurity and poor self-esteem, causing them to feel like a failure by admitting a mistake, rather than seeing it as an opportunity for growth and exercising integrity.
Over time they may have developed a coping mechanism, to protect themselves, and their fragile ego by pretending that either what they did was not wrong, or that it was somebody else’s fault.
The Hallmarks of Narcissists
Actually, one of the hallmarks of narcissists is incompetence.
The reason being that if you can’t take responsibility for something, you can’t get better. So you just keep doing the same mistakes, over and over again. And every time it is just everyone else’s fault, or the situation, or some external factor, but never your fault.
Identify the Signs Early
There’s a certain level of immaturity, arrogance and entitlement that comes with this behavior.
It is toxic.
If you can identify these signs early in someone, it can save you a lot of trouble further down the road.
Slideshow version of this article explaining a major red flag in relationships to look out for
To learn more, dive into
A Short Course in Human Relations
Leave a Reply