“This is our fault and our fault alone”

Anna Rowley — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:09:14 +0000

In his testimony on Capital Hill, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan testified that his organization was responsible for the failure of security during President Obama’s first state dinner. It many ways this shouldn’t be an earth-shattering event. A leader has admitted responsibility for something going wrong. Yet Sullivan is one of the few leaders who have demonstrated the moral fiber, or backbone, to admit a mistake. There seems to be an aversion for most leaders to take responsibility when things go wrong on their watch. Just look at Wall Street. Despite complete failure no one would admit accountability. The CEO’s hid behind employees and employees hid behind computer algorithms. It’s so bad that government, in the form of the Financial Services Committee, has to bring in legislation to bring accountability to Wall Street.

One company that has embraced accountability in recent months is GE. The global giant has been putting over 1,000 of its top executives through new training sessions to identify where it went wrong in the lead up to the recession. “It’s about being able to say, “We made mistakes, ”” said Christina Anderson, an executive attending one of the sessions.

How refreshing it is to hear leaders such as Sullivan and Anderson admit culpability and confess they have much to learn.

So how accountable are you? Do you:

Force people to re-examine critical assumptions?
Promote thinking, learning and reflection as key business competencies?
Provide opportunities to learn from success and reflect on failures?
Consider the moral and ethical consequences of decisions you make?
Have the humility to take responsibility when things go wrong?

Accountability is job #1 for a leader. It’s a business fundamental many seem to conveniently ignore or forget. Maybe the example provided by the Secret Service and GE might prompt other leaders to reflect on the effect their behavior has on others; do they encourage accountability or instead role model hiding or blaming others as a way out.

Where have all the leaders gone?

Anna Rowley — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:47:11 +0000

Recent events in the Corporate, Political, Sporting and secular worlds suggest there is a crisis in leadership. The failure of AIG, the demise of the stock market, the Madoff scandal, bloated wages and charges of drug abuse in sports, corruption in Government and abuse in the Church have left a moral, emotional, psychological and spiritual vacuum where once our leaders stood. A recent study found that Americans are highly critical of the state of leadership in the country – 66% believe there is a leadership crisis. So, where have all our leaders gone? Is it true that we are entering the 21st Century with a dearth of men and women, who we can trust to make decisions based upon the greater good, who are honest and act with integrity? In a recent article in the Washington Post, David Rothkopf, former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration, observes that for a new generation of leaders to succeed, we the public must hold ourselves accountable. He concludes. “This will require more reason than emotion, more patience than impulse, more focus on core values than on economic value creation, more of a long-term view and less focus on instant gratification. After all, our wrong choices in these arenas helped create our leadership vacuum in the first place.” Maybe its true, we do get the leadership we deserve and to break the current cycle we must hold ourselves, and those who lead us, far more accountable.

Rowley Associates » Accountability

“This is our fault and our fault alone”

Where have all the leaders gone?