I'll play devil's advocate here and say that sometimes these incidents deserve praise because they uncovered an issue that was otherwise unknown previously. Also if the incident had a large negative impact then it shows to leadership how critical normal operation of that service is. Even if you were the cause of the issue, the fact that you fixed it and kept the critical service operating the rest of the time, is worth something good.
Mistakes happen, and a culture that insists too hard that "mistakes shouldn't happen, and so we can't be seen making mistakes" is harmful toward engineering.
How should their performance be evaluated, if not by the rote number of mistakes that can be pinned onto the person, and their combined impact? (Was that the question?)
