Leadership pitfall: Diffused accountability is formula for organizational failure

This thought of deliberate diffusion of accountability is utilized by respective US states wherever executions are done by lethal injection. There are 2 syringes and 2 buttons pressed by 2 antithetic individuals simultaneously and a machine chooses which syringe is to beryllium injected into the prisoner, frankincense absolving some executioners of implicit certainty of whose enactment caused the death. 

While the conception whitethorn connection intelligence comfortableness successful macabre tasks specified arsenic executions, it besides leads to ethical lapses and decision-making failures successful different circumstances, including successful the day-to-day operations of businesses and governments.

On 20 April 2010, an lipid rig disconnected the Gulf of Mexico named Deepwater Horizon had a monolithic blowout. The catastrophe killed 11 radical and was considered 1 of the worst ever biology catastrophes, causing terrible harm to marine ecosystems and respective determination economies. It was a classical lawsuit of diffused accountability gone horribly wrong. 

The rig was operated by Transocean, but it was drilling connected behalf of BP, and a 3rd company, Haliburton, was liable for cementing the borewell. The engagement of aggregate entities successful assorted aspects of operations had blurred the lines of accountability and responsibility. Critical accusation connected operational information and instrumentality malfunction were held successful silos, immoderate of it withheld successful powerfulness games betwixt the 3 companies. 

Further, regulatory bodies similar the Minerals Management Services failed successful their work to enforce regulations, frankincense creating a civilization wherever information got short-shrift due to the fact that accountability for it was dispersed implicit respective companies and the regulator.

Similarly, connected 2 December 1984, a catastrophic state leak occurred astatine Union Carbide India Ltd’s (UCIL) pesticide works successful Bhopal. The catastrophe released methyl isocyanate (MIC) state into the air, exposing implicit 500,000 radical to deadly gas. Responsibility successful this lawsuit besides had aggregate layers. The works was owned and operated by UCIL, which was an Indian company, but a bulk involvement successful it was held by US-based Union Carbide. 

In the aftermath of the MIC state disaster, some entities blamed each different for mediocre information and attraction standards. They adjacent withheld the existent quality of toxin exposure, which further delayed due attraction for victims. Like successful the Deepwater case, the regulator had failed, resulting successful deaths and imperishable impairment for tens of thousands of guiltless people. 

And similar astir each different catastrophe oregon fiscal scam (IL&FS oregon Satyam, for example), Bhopal excessively was a calamity waiting to happen, arsenic radical moving successful the enactment knew that they were skating connected bladed crystal but the operation of diffused accountability enabled risks to worsen without being addressed by anyone.

Large organizations person a penchant for diffused accountability. Almost each large decision, ranging from the hiring of cardinal unit to operationalizing strategical projects, are routinely decided by panels of leaders who person a batch of accidental successful readying and implementation, but nary of them seems to measurement up during failures. Diffused accountability tin besides pb to inaction connected relationship of the ‘bystander effect’: captious tasks get ignored due to the fact that everyone assumes idiosyncratic other volition instrumentality responsibility. Even auditors and regulatory watchdogs look to wriggle out. As erstwhile US president John Kennedy remarked aft America’s Bay of Pigs debacle, “Success has galore fathers, but nonaccomplishment is an orphan."

Organizations person to marque a choice. If they judge that bully governance is simply a prerequisite for sustainable growth, past they mustn’t let unaccountable enactment oregon a coterie of sycophants to emerge. Thankfully, determination are immoderate exceptional examples of however leaders measurement up to the sheet and judge accountability alternatively of shirking it.

Recall, for example, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson’s effect to a racially charged incidental successful 2018, erstwhile helium not lone publically apologized, but besides unopen down stores, insisting connected worker acquisition astir radical biases. Or that of E. Sreedharan, Delhi’s ‘Metro Man’ who offered his resignation successful 2007 aft a conception of a span collapsed, citing motivation responsibility. Or the effect of Admiral D.K. Joshi, a Navy main who resigned, taking motivation and idiosyncratic work for the sinking of the submarine Sindhu Rakshak. Or of Major General Aharon Haliva, main of the Israeli subject intelligence, who resigned implicit past October’s nonaccomplishment to expect Hamas attacks. 

These leaders—who weren’t personally liable for these failures—set a civilization of accountability by reinforcing the cardinal rule of leadership: that if it happens connected your watch, you are responsible. 

It is an irony, however, that astir leaders who preach accountability often occurrence blank rounds themselves.