tl;dr: Blame-based leadership creates fear, silences learning, and erodes trust. Great leaders replace blame with shared accountability, psychological safety, and system-focused improvement.
I recently witnessed a leadership moment that stopped me in my tracks. A CEO, standing on a stage in front of hundreds of employees, pointed to a fellow C-level executive and declared:
“If anything goes wrong with this initiative, that's the person to blame.”
No smile. No wink. No hint of humor. Just a public preemptive scapegoating.
And I remember thinking: if that's how the “executive team” operates, are they really a team at all?
That moment wasn't just uncomfortable–it was revealing. It showed how quickly leaders can default to blame instead of shared responsibility.
The difference between blame and accountability in leadership shows up fast — sometimes in a single sentence. I recently witnessed a leadership moment that made this painfully clear. A CEO, standing on a stage in front of hundreds of employees, pointed to a fellow C-level executive and declared:
What Blame Does to a Leadership Team
Public blame-shifting isn't just unprofessional–it's a failure of leadership. When a leader singles out an individual for potential failure, they erode trust and create fear, which stifles innovation. In contrast, great leaders share accountability and make it safe to learn from what goes wrong.
A strong leadership team acts like a team, not a siloed collection of leaders.
When one member falters, the others step in–not to assign blame, but to find solutions. A CEO who throws a colleague under the bus in front of an audience gets defensiveness and disengagement. That shouldn't surprise anyone.
I never interacted with the CEO at the time, but the blame game was strong at GM 30 years ago when I worked there:
Blame vs. Accountability: The Difference That Matters
Accountability means owning results and doing something useful with them. Blame is just assigning fault. One leads somewhere. The other doesn't.
Leaders who truly embrace accountability don't pass the buck. Instead, they:
- Create a Culture of Psychological Safety – When people feel safe admitting mistakes or performance shortfalls, they're more likely to learn from them. Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson has shown that psychologically safe teams perform better because they're willing to take risks and admit missteps without fear of humiliation.
- Use “We” Instead of “They” – Effective leaders understand that challenges are faced together. Instead of saying, “If something goes wrong, it's on them,” they say, “If we encounter obstacles, we'll work through them together.”
- Frame Mistakes as Learning Opportunities – A Lean leader doesn't fear mistakes; they embrace them as fuel for continuous improvement. As I wrote in The Mistakes That Make Us, organizations that normalize learning from failure build resilience and adaptability.
- Focus on Process, Not Just People – Often, failures are not the result of a single person's misstep, but a breakdown in process. Leaders who adopt Lean thinking know that improving systems–not blaming individuals–is the key to sustainable success.
So what does accountability look like in practice? And how do great leaders create conditions where people feel safe owning results?
In Toyota's culture, leaders take responsibility for the system, not just the outcomes. When something goes wrong, the question is never “Who messed up?” but “What in the system allowed this to happen?”
A Challenge for Leaders
If you're in a leadership role, ask yourself:
- When things go wrong, do I step in with curiosity–or step back to protect my reputation?
- Do I discuss mistakes openly, or do people hesitate to bring me bad news?
- Do I help people investigate systems, or do I quietly look for someone to hold responsible?
Accountability isn't about finding a convenient person to blame when something goes wrong. It's about creating an environment where people are safe enough–and supported enough–to own problems, surface issues early, and learn their way forward.
[…] Why Great Leaders Share Responsibility Instead of Throwing Others Under the Bus: Amen to that! We’ve all worked for the latter type of boss – or will at some point. Great read. […]