Opinion
Leadership pitfall: Diffused accountability is formula for organizational failure
Summary
- Leaders must take responsibility for what happens on their watch instead of trying to pass the buck. The rule spans all kinds of organizations, from armed forces and administration to businesses.
Death by firing squad is a sentence usually meted out in the military for heinous crimes like murder or desertion. The condemned prisoner is tied to a post or stood against a wall. A group of five or more soldiers aim at him, and on command, fire their rifles simultaneously. Notably, one of the soldiers is randomly and anonymously given a rifle loaded with a blank round, thus allowing each one to find solace in the chance they weren’t personally responsible for taking a life.
This idea of deliberate diffusion of accountability is used by several US states where executions are done by lethal injection. There are two syringes and two buttons pressed by two different individuals simultaneously and a computer chooses which syringe is to be injected into the prisoner, thus absolving both executioners of absolute certainty of whose action caused the death.
While the concept may offer psychological comfort in macabre tasks such as executions, it also leads to ethical lapses and decision-making failures in other circumstances, including in the day-to-day operations of businesses and governments.
On 20 April 2010, an oil rig off the Gulf of Mexico named Deepwater Horizon had a massive blowout. The disaster killed 11 people and was considered one of the worst ever environmental catastrophes, causing severe damage to marine ecosystems and several regional economies. It was a classic case of diffused accountability gone horribly wrong.
The rig was operated by Transocean, but it was drilling on behalf of BP, and a third company, Haliburton, was responsible for cementing the borewell. The involvement of multiple entities in various aspects of operations had blurred the lines of accountability and responsibility. Critical information on operational safety and equipment malfunction were held in silos, some of it withheld in power games between the three companies.
Further, regulatory bodies like the Minerals Management Services failed in their responsibility to enforce regulations, thus creating a culture where safety got short-shrift because accountability for it was spread over several companies and the regulator.
Similarly, on 2 December 1984, a catastrophic gas leak occurred at Union Carbide India Ltd’s (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal. The disaster released methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas into the air, exposing over 500,000 people to deadly gas. Responsibility in this case also had multiple layers. The plant was owned and operated by UCIL, which was an Indian company, but a majority stake in it was held by US-based Union Carbide.
In the aftermath of the MIC gas disaster, both entities blamed each other for poor safety and maintenance standards. They even withheld the true nature of toxin exposure, which further delayed appropriate treatment for victims. Like in the Deepwater case, the regulator had failed, resulting in deaths and permanent impairment for tens of thousands of innocent people.
And like almost every other disaster or financial scam (IL&FS or Satyam, for example), Bhopal too was a tragedy waiting to happen, as people working in the organization knew that they were skating on thin ice but the structure of diffused accountability enabled risks to worsen without being addressed by anyone.
Large organizations have a penchant for diffused accountability. Almost every major decision, ranging from the hiring of key personnel to operationalizing strategic projects, are routinely decided by panels of leaders who have a lot of say in planning and implementation, but none of them seems to step up during failures. Diffused accountability can also lead to inaction on account of the ‘bystander effect’: critical tasks get ignored because everyone assumes someone else will take responsibility. Even auditors and regulatory watchdogs appear to wriggle out. As former US president John Kennedy remarked after America’s Bay of Pigs debacle, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan."
Organizations have to make a choice. If they believe that good governance is a prerequisite for sustainable growth, then they mustn’t allow unaccountable leadership or a coterie of sycophants to emerge. Thankfully, there are some exceptional examples of how leaders step up to the plate and accept accountability instead of shirking it.
Recall, for example, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson’s response to a racially charged incident in 2018, when he not only publicly apologized, but also shut down stores, insisting on employee education about racial biases. Or that of E. Sreedharan, Delhi’s ‘Metro Man’ who offered his resignation in 2007 after a section of a bridge collapsed, citing moral responsibility. Or the response of Admiral D.K. Joshi, a Navy chief who resigned, taking moral and personal responsibility for the sinking of the submarine Sindhu Rakshak. Or of Major General Aharon Haliva, chief of the Israeli military intelligence, who resigned over last October’s failure to anticipate Hamas attacks.
These leaders—who weren’t personally responsible for these failures—set a culture of accountability by reinforcing the cardinal principle of leadership: that if it happens on your watch, you are responsible.
It is an irony, however, that most leaders who preach accountability often fire blank rounds themselves.
