The acid test of a true leader takes place when managers at any level find themselves in the situation that Zoe Cruz experienced. The acid test goes like this: when a situation within your organization goes bad and you are expected to respond, do you stand in front of your people and take responsiblity for your organization's decisions or do stand behind them, trying to hide and blaming others for the issue. The answer, of course, is easy: the true leader stands in front and takes full responsibility for any actions of their organization. If you didn't, how would ever build trust and respect in your people? In addition, how would you ever build organizational competency in manageable risk taking if you didn't? The answer is, you couldn't. True leaders always take rsponsibility for their organization's performance.

From the above article: "...the Journal reports that she took the opposite tact,..."(2nd paragraph, last sentence)

The word is "tack", not "tact." I am surprised such a commonly spoken malapropism escaped the eagle eyes of HBR's editorial staff.

Hi Tom,

Thanks for pointing out this oversight. We have fixed the error.

Regards,
Paul Michelman
Director of Content
Harvard Business Digital

yes, Leaders have to step up and take that kind of responsibility. As Larry wrote in the previous comment "how would [you] ever build trust and respect in your people?" - a critical success factor for any organisation.

Though the question is two-folded: leaders should accept that responsibility - but should organisations always hold their leaders responsible - to the extend that a leader has to leave/be asked to leave in order to 'show that he takes the responsibility'? Or should an organisation honour that a leader takes responsibility, honour such behaviour and ensure personal & organisational learning from these mistakes for the future?

I believe that this is the key to superior performance and excellence - ultimately true organisational leadership.

Actually, "tack" is (among other things) a nautical term meaning "to change one's couse of action" and is appropriate for the usage in the article.

Like most people, I agree that the leader needs to "take responsibility" for all aspects of the organization and it's performance. There are two concepts working here. First, the top leader needs to assume responsibility for "command," similar to the concept of the captain of the ship, or of any military leader. Second, the top leader should have been periodically assessing the company's operations, decisions, and behaviors, and in doing so, should have prevented the poor decision or performance from ever occuring.

I bristle, however, when we start talking about "blaming" someone for such an event. When we blame, we give up the opportunity to understand the true cause of a poor decision. This often happens when a leader resigns or is fired. The underlying issues (e.g., poor communications at lower levels, poor management by subordinate levels, inaccurate management data or reports, bad planning or projections, bad policies, poor procedures, and hundreds more) never get resolved, or even examined. A better idea is to learn something important from each apparent leadership/management failure.

This is quite an interesting topic - Should we stand up or hide? I would say a True Leader is that who has a strong character. As it is rightly said; we need to have nerves of steel to become a True Leader i.e. always be ready to sacrifice the most possessed things or relations. If taken an extreme situation that the person who takes responsibility is asked to leave the organization; the decision made by the person after considering family, fame & respect, money etc would be judged as result of authentic leadership.
The bad part of being bold and leaving (though earning respect to majority of the staff) the organization is the elements who are the real cause of such failures get stronger and are convinced that if they could hide at this hour; then they can put blame on someone else and start climbing the corporate ladder faster than anyone else.

Therefore; sometimes it becomes important to pull such elements in public and set an example for others to avoid (which I call is Police & Thief act) assuming you have already cautioned them in private earlier about their wrong doings and things havent improved from then.
Finally; I would say it is a situation based answer as we are Humans and we all see same situation from different perspectives - "Stand up and take the charge on yourself and doing good to the company OR To Hide (as said in the article)and put the blame on others - i.e. bringing bad to the company" OR there could be the third option - To take charge and alongwith it; pull up the culprits - i.e. bringing good to the company.

Leadership as the term so stands that the person situated in decision making process the ultimate figurehead who is to blamed or otherwise for success or failure otherwise he was not called a leader. His direction,application with his experience, realization coupled with expertise with his tool boxes fetch the organization to obtain a position however, though, it is a collective effort. unleashing the collective effort to the fullest potential will be his talent. and questions does not arise of failure and in case happens it means he has failed before the hands of the competitors.

Indeed, this is a time-tested approach.

'He', 'She', 'They' or at the most 'We' when it comes to taking credit for success. And, 'I' when it is about owning up for a failure and taking blame.

And add to this, if you deal with the responsible person with the approach of "criticize in private, praise in public" it goes a long way of employee transformation.

The satisfaction as a leader is to see the realization in the face of the person who was really responsible for that failure, when s/he realizes you are backing them up and taking the hit. And, in most cases the mistake doesn't recur.

It is abundantly clear that 'Best Practices ', had no focus - right up to the bitter end.

The Blog on Benchmarking, in BestPrax Clubs portal, would perhaps highlight, what was missing in 'management'.

The learning lesson is clear ; Benchmark Practices.

As a manager it is not important when you are in the office but it is much more important when you are out of office. According to definition of great leadership a successful and great leader…. One, who took the dependability (collapse) of his or peers in his or her own.
But in practical little bit of these premises shows its impact. As MR. Paul Michelman exactly find out the situation where sometime CEO’S duck the bouncer,
Why not when the non sticker is really non cooperative.( as some greats are truly said that leadership is situational ) but the modern TQM techniques of total strategic grid like Balanced Scorecard where possibility of such failure is so little that CEO’s are ready to take any accountability, as they know the probability of failure is too little to duck.

Every time when a football team like Arsenal, Real Madrid,
Or cricket team like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan they succeed the entire light twinkle on team batsman, or bowler, or captain, but the shadowy sight we can view when the team failed. The team’s coaches have to (ram) by take the whole conscientiousness of this massacre.

The duck concept of bullet or bouncer or blame of malfunction is just come from the field to CEO’s mind. After all they also man from earth…not men from mars.

tapobrata dey.
Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management.
india, kolkata

Leaders (Management) should always take the blame. It is always the ultimate responsibility of the person at the top to get things right. However when things go wrong part of taking responsibility includes identifying everything (process and persons) that need to be fixed. If someone did not followed the process the leader (or manager) had the responsibility to ensure that processes are followed and things are done right.

Manager is responsible. There is no question of ducking your head. Offcourse it dit not worked for Morgan Stanley's manager.

Should Leaders Always Take the Blame?
If they will not take the blame sir, do you expect anyone from the lower leader of the people for take the blame.
This is a very open case
Once the Peter Ducker the only management guru I admire who opened up many chapters after the world war and came with immense pressure for all lobbyist of the war veteran to re-look at the management in the war time issue. There is the major who is the risk taker followed by many who take the orders from top and delegate these to the lower ladder always ensuring that the pipe line of the order was in the manner laid out.
Here I will simplify the issue by what we see in the audit firm
We have the partner, then the tax or audit manger, to follow by the supervisors, senior, semi-senior- junior, semi juniors, trainees, secretary m office massagers. That allows the partner to sign many balance sheets, reports in a year. Remove one he is stuck up doing many things on his own. c
Coming back to the delegation, if you do delegate and there is a collapsed roof, the blame is on you sir. You delegated to the wrong person. We have the HR best to days that we never had. Delegation is a choice also. If the parson chosen is totally out of the working arena of your parade, I see you as the responsible person. No excuse on this. I may take you to the civil court for negligence or hire as good layer to ensure this sticks
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

A leader by virtue of very definition is leading the whole operations right from beginning to end. He is responsible for watch the movement at each stage and apply corrections where ever he feels appropriate. In case he is unable to carry out this important function of his duty he is, otherwise, unfit to retain position of leadership. Most appropriately he should have been watched of his incapability to take decisions by the reporting systems of the organization.

In case outside factors are too powerful to be brought under control, it is duty and judgement of leader to initiate a collective decision making process , well in time.

Under no circumstance Leader can be allowed to pass on responsibility down the line.

"Uneasy is the head that wears the crown"If you are 'praised look outside the window & say it is because of them.If you are not praised look into the mirror & say it is my fault.That is what leadership is all about.

it is a truism that good leader should always stand behind and take resposibility for even the so called deligated duties, not just because it further points to them on the long run but moreso the fact that they are CEO, nothwithstanding the level in the hierarchy, because CEO WHO DOES TAKE RESPOSIBILITY ULTIMATELY WIN APPRECIATION/loyalty of the so called subordinates.

An effective leader would take responsibility for what they are in fact responsible for. Zoë Cruz was with Morgan Stanley for around twenty-five years, I believe. We have heard about questionable leadership decisions in the past from this company. Perhaps they are finally reviewing the corporate culture in which Zoë Cruz "grew up".

It seems we all agree that the Manager should take responsibility, However, I further agree with those that stated earlier that the lessons are not learned until we review the processes and procedures that led to the failures in the first place. Without a thorough review process, we are leaving the door open for repeating the same mistakes.

Leadership is 'earned' through the challenging times not the good times. In this situation, admiting 'guilt' is different than taking the 'responsibility' for actions of the team. Once the responsibility factor is adressed it is then important for the leader to set the course right and rectify any people issues that led to the problem.

Leadership is leading and not just taking credit for good things that happen.

Yes leaders are required to take responsibility of their team members'failures in the critical areas where leader and his members are expected to deliver with collective responsibility. If the leader does not know how to track & his team member the failure clearly lies with the leader even if his team failed.Equally on the flip side if leader wants take credit for a success then he should take the blame for failure.If CEO takes credit for his firms shares sky rocketing in stock exchange and blame the team or economy for below peformance of the stock

There are certain actions which are routine in nature liking filing some returns, information or responding to a custoemr, follow up with a customer or vendor etc where the full responsibility lies with the team member. In such case if there is any failure it should not be shared by the leader

Sir
This is exactly where we fall in a trap. The titles CFO, CEO, President, Chairman, Manager, COO. The person may be having all titles or I call this badges, his duty is of one person. Go back to Solomon VS Solomon. We hade created a limited company. We define the shareholder different from the president or the member. In other words the share holder at that time in the seat of the driving forces a CEO. Who is the driver? Is he a member? Does he get away with the title or does he stand the trial.
Having said this I will illustrate a small picture (I like to do this to clear my own cobwebs in my head)).
We had a social club, get-together. We named this as "Executive Forum (This was for the lawyers and invited guests). The meetings were dominated with law stage. Did we go wrong here? Did the outsiders have any chance to speak up? Were we truly living up the pseudo name EXEUTIVE??
WE re-named this to THE Management Forum. This was a little light on the visitors. They opened up and spoke. This exercise took us at least six months. Yes, we lost some lawyers but we gained many CEO, CFO, the president, chairperson, ladies students and the membership had to be stopped at one time .We were full.
The small detour. Whole forum change is a good example to be carried into the in corporation where we have red tape. There is mud slinging. No one knows who starts the rumor mongering.
Cut out few titles, you are safe.
Now I call CEO as Chief Environment Officer. Beat that?
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

99 out of 100 people will give a clear answer to this question & say that as true leader one must accept the blame & lead from the front. I also agree in a normal, mature & professional organizational setting. But I have seen more than once such courageous & honest acceptance hurting many people in the short run at least if the organizational culture is poor. I have seen it getting used in a negative or a political way against the very people who were just following this normally an ideal way a leader should take.

Another situation in which I think this may prove to not the best option is when you clearly know the person in your team responsible for a mishap. And especially if the guy was not even keeping you informed. In such cases by taking the blame yourself is in fact not serving the purpose.

I agree that most people play by the avoidance strategies.
I do not know why, but this is getting very common.
What shall we do about this problem?
I left previous company and the one before mainly due to top management were so dynfunction that they did not take responsibility for what had happened.
On the other hand, when comes to decision making as a team, how shall that "blame" be accountable and been addressed?

It is true that the top person, in this case Zoe Cruz, has to take much of the blame for such "malfunctions" to be considered a leader. It is also true that there are others- peers, subordinates and seniors- who are responsible for such a thing to occur.

I feet it is the organisation as a collective that is responsible- whatever decisions are taken at any level have the go-ahead of the authorities at and above that level, in full knowledge of the benefits and risks associated with those decisions.

From all the comments above, the most prominent argument coming up is that the "true test" of a leader is to "take the blame for a mishap". But that's just the same thing- the efforts of the organisation are concentrated on finding a scapegoat instead of looking for the root cause and finding solutions to overcome the situation. And in looking for the scapegoat and proving through various means that the person or collective is the one to blame, the organisation wastes precious resources, thus scuttling the main issue- which is finding out what went wrong in the first place. Also, since only a few people are cornered, they will try to either cut their losses by "bowing out gracefully" after taking the blame or they will try to rake the dirt and bring in others into the fold of "muck raking". In the meanwhile, relief is provided to the majority who have been linked to the decision inviting the crisis, and strengthens the negative aspect- that one can do anything so long as someone else takes the blame, esp. those at the higher level; people can get away with anything.

Very interesting insights into an organisation's culture can come up in observing how it deals with major crises as this one. An organisation with emphasis on analysis and remedial actions along with the usual processes will fare better in terms of the quality of employees it fosters, the decisions they take would be more balanced, they will be more open to ideas that help the organisation and their fellow employees; a vast majority, including the top management will definitely not sling mud onto each other. I believe that such an organisation as a whole would be able to withstand such exigencies better than those who choose to play a blame game. The blame game tactic is a stop gap arrangement which will tide over the mess for the short run, but will harm the organisation in the long run. People lose confidence in such companies- they would not want to take their business to such companies, nor want to be employed there for fear of reprisal and becoming an outcast in case of disasters. And of course, no "leaders" would become part of such an organisation and thereby decreasing its value further!

Dear Sir ,

1. The US sub - prime crisis has just scalped its first victim - Morgan Stanley's Zoe Cruz . Possibly , more would follow . To say that these huge losses can be solely attributed to Cruz alone , would be unfair to her . The entire environment around her , i.e. the BOD , subordinate managers etc can not be absolved of blame either . By the way , someone was supposed to blow the whistle that all is not well . Where were the conscience - keepers ?

2. Sure , a leader should be magnanimous in defeat - she could have owned moral responsibility and offered to step down in keeping with the highest traditions of Corporate management . Ideally , leaders should lead by example ; that is how subordinate leaders can be groomed and rise to emulate their idols . Business leaders would do well to remember the adage - " When the going gets tough , the tough get going ". Honestly , a leader's sacrifice would never go in vain - it helps instil a sense of accountability at all levels .

Warm regards ,

Manohar Mann

I think the leader has to take the responsibility for failures, but internally they have to go back and analyze within their teams on the reasons of failure and how, what and where went wrong. The team should clearly know the failure points and the fact that the blame as accepted publicly is not of the leader alone and team is responsible for it.

Sir
The acid test and other test will only delay the right person to come to the board. If we keep on harping about this or that test, we are only postponing the new recruitments.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

Hello to those who may think leaders are the ones responsibles:

1)This is like a baseball game,the pitcher won the game because

he pitched excellent and the "Head Coach" had nothing to do

with it.

2)The same in American football. You have a game

almost lost. The "Head Coach" call time out. Explain a few

things to his quaterback and...His team won, thanks to the

quaterbacker's last play that was told by the "Head Coach".

What is the idea here?

The idea should be to chose from a pool of ideas and decide

which one is better.

Next, it was the pitcher who followed the command of his

feelings and thoughts, "moving ahead". No case

One word missing in the discussion is humility. Humility all too often is seen, especially in competitive cultures like Wall Street, to be weakness. As Collins and other point out, though, the paradoxical combination of humility and professional will is the mark of the most effective leaders.

Humility causes a leader to recognize that he or she may be wrong, or that there may be other valid perspectives, or that it isn't important to be seen to be the smartest person in the room all the time. Humility also helps leaders connect with others up, down, and across the chain of command, to build organizations and cultures that more likely thrive. Finally, humility recognizes that there's a big difference between responsibility and blame; that taking responsibility regardless of where the blame may lay down the organization is the first step to getting people to focus on a solution rather than simply point fingers.

Leadership is a burden, and one of the burdens of leadership is to see one's role in relation to the followers. Leaders rally others to follow. But it's hard to get people to follow if they're afraid of getting whacked every time something goes wrong.

I guess a framework should be developed which supports a leader in such circumstances, owning up others responsibility is definately leadership but not fully the truth.
I feel in a situation like this imagine if a framework is in place it will assist the board in understanding what a leader can be capable of making mistakes and what a leader should not take responsibility of mistakes.
The problems always start at a micro level & leaders who are not in the helm of such detail always end up taking responsibilities for perhaps sometimes no fault of theirs.
So, develop a framework which helps in making better decisions.

HB Conversation Starter Editors -

Would you consider adding a feature that allows readers to email the Conversation Starter original entry with comments?

I'd like to use these to start conversations within my organization.

Best -
JM Gorman

The question is premised by an anecdote -- the story of Zoe Cruz-- which is based on a Wall Street Journal story?
On the basis of this information Mr. Michelman draws a conclusion: "It seems as though Morgan Stanley's Zoe Cruz had the wrong answer."
Then Mr. Michelman poses –indirectly -- the broader question: "Should a manager, in the context of a post-mortem, accept full responsibility for poor results that are ascribed to an organizational and business misstep?"

("But she made a critical error during a course of post mortem meetings. [...] Certainly, there were other factors that contributed to her ouster, but Cruz's apparent failure to be more "leaderly" and accept full responsibility was a critical misstep. One likes to think that all managers know the right decision is to take the hit for your team [...] So what would you have done if you faced a similar situation? ")

Rather than answering directly – I presume this is not an opinion poll—I would like to pose three relevant questions:

a. Should we accept Wall Street Journal verdict as objective and truthful? Or we should leave room for doubt? I.e. Are Wall Street Journal points of view -- marked by selectiveness in the presentation and interpretation of evidence -- occasionally influenced by politics? (Business politics included)

b. Should we conclude publicly on the actual behaviour and morality of persons on the basis of such journalistic information (even with the caveat “it seems”)?

c. Is a post mortem the place for objective analysis? If yes, an organizational and business fault is always the outcome of a sole manager’s error of judgement? Culture, structures, systems, other persons input, motivations and skills, and finally politics play no role?

Looking at this from the perspective of those you lead: If we're given a leadership role, part of our legitimacy stems form the fact that our teams (and our shareholders) have convinced themselves that we can be counted on to reliably steer the organization through rough waters to success.

Most of the problem stems from external pressures, e.g.: the fact that the investment community seeks to place blame on an individual, because blaming and replacing one person makes it easier to sustain shareholder value, whereas admitting the need to replace an entire organization creates an image of greater instability and fosters a greater degree of uncertainty.

Consequently, being a leader means that you accept the role you play in failures as well as successes, and accept the associated risks; it's an inherent part of the role.

It is ideal to say that the leader should takeup entire responsibility of good or bad.But in big and complex organinisations there are so many elements out of the sight of leadership.The leader can plan at macro level and the micro level implementation goes down with the hirarchy.The structure,hirarchy and the culture should be responsive for timely and corrective steps towards the goals and road map set by the leader.A leader shall definately assess the situation,imagine future risks and give directions but it is the hirarchy that shall percolate down the course of action.Any failure at any level seen or unseen can not be thrown upon totally on person sitting at the top.

The story of Ms Zoe Cruz as presented by Mr. Michelman poses an interesting question:

Can one become irresponsible by behaving responsibly?

Responsibility is defined as reliability, trustworthiness and finally accountability. (Accountable is defined as being liable to be called to answer).

Now suppose that Ms Cruz receives strong –seemingly irrational -- pressures from upper echelons of Morgan Stanley -- directly or indirectly -- to follow the trend (or the herd) that resulted to the credit crisis.

Being trustworthy, reliable and accountable to these figures of power --failing to persuade them otherwise- Ms Cruz follow through.

But then the inevitable comes. Now Ms Cruz has turned to irresponsible because of her prior responsibility?

Cruz was found to be unsuitable because she was not prepared to take responsibility for what had happened. A good leader is like a shepherd: protects the flock against danger (and does not hide behind the flock when danger presents itself), keeps the flock together. She was not to blame for what went wrong, but she should have had the courage to take responsibility for it.
Responsibility implies much more than taking the blame. It also implies analysing what went wrong, and putting in place measures to reduce the risk of it happening again.
In my opinion good leaders are people who are prepared to take calculated risks and then stand by their decisions, protecting the people who are exposed to those risks. Their level of success will depend on their ability to establish and understand the risks they are taking.

A leader should take responsilibilty for the fialures of his organisation up to the extent to which his span of influence and control extends. Whether this entails stepping down from the position depends on the circumstances surrounding the situation which translated into the loss for the stakeholders.

Assignning blame, though others have attained a level of success through it, is not acceptable in modern business and society.

Leaders should take the responsibility for the failures and give credit to their team when succeed. A true leader is one who doesnt crave for success - it automatically comes to him. A Leader can choose his team. If any of the member is not fiiting the bill, leader has to move him out (or train him - leader needs to chose his team for attitude and train them skill). Leader needs to correct his team members but to the external world he needs to project his team for success and take the blame for himself in case of failures......

As a sales leader I always stand up and take the blame whenever things go wrong at my team. When the sale is up everybody including the Finance Director want to take credit, and I give full credit to my team. When the sale is down, everybody point finger at my team and then I shield the team by taking all the blames on my shoulder. Thus the team is so motivated that I can make them eat fire for me.

Anisur Rahman, MBA
Head of Sales
PRAN Group
Dhaka, Bangladesh

In a conversation currently taking place in the Harvard Business website ("Mao’s Pervasive Influence on Chinese CEOs") the authors make the following observations:

"In our study, conducted with Garry D. Bruton of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, we found several Chinese chief executives who employ a business version of that tactic: They cement their authority by keeping even senior managers in a constant state of uncertainty, sometimes mobilizing lower-level employees to criticize and pressure mid- and upper-level executives.
A wireless-paging company we studied offers an example. Rather than directly fire some of her middle managers, the CEO mobilized lower-level employees to defy them, leaving them with no choice but to resign (the CEOs we spoke to did not want their names used). In another instance, a former general manager of a call center told us she had to quit after her subordinates were directly mobilized by the parent company’s CEO to circumvent her orders and pressure her to resign."

A more hypocritical version of this tactic would not be to have a post mortem and ask the middle manager take full responsibility of the unsatisfactory business performance?

And in the case the middle manager presents his/her case in the context of the post mortem then a) fire him/her, b)leak a story to an authoritative newspaper that thrashes further the middle manager's reputation on the basis of moral grounds?

Could moral concepts and commonly held moral beliefs be used to further immoral behavior?

Coincidently, this topic came on HBR when I was with my VP on one such review along with peers. Customer was furious due to losses incurred, so every one adopted the defensive pasture. VP was taking all bashing and rest were providing moral support by keeping silence. At the back of mind I did remember that one of us took action to bring in the process during last incident which did not happened . Hence he made some contribution to the current situation.
Now the VP has taken the responsibility of the blame and again this time he has committed to bring the preventive measure, off course it is responsibility of the comrades. I am confused as leaders rely on the organisation to implement the decision he has made and failure to implement the changes is the organisational failure so by removing the leader who failed , will not resolve the issue . In past and now I am experiencing that successful leaders always have their trusted team as an implementer with out which he is nothing.
Leaning to the article on the subject of infectious leadership I feel that leader may be seen as a face to take blame and organisation to learn the lesson.

Just an interesting observation here:

>

From this, it looks like John Mack himself was looking for a scapegoat! If he were a true leader, should he have pointed fingers at Cruz, or should he have taken it upon himself?

I have read many of the comments on this page and essentially there are few, if any, that disagree with the notion that a leader should take the blame if their or their team's decision have lead to a poor result. However, I would like to ask the question: "How often have we not seen this happen and the 'leaders' remain where they are or are even promoted as a consequence?"

Never.

They must guide with more clarity of thoughts and ofcourse they will be leaders when they lead the confidence rather taking the blames.

Sir
Beats me that many HR always insist n the pretty faces or call these charisma. The charismatic or the pretty one has the punishment reduced if caught a little as he/she is in a better form. Now that is for the employee. I have no clue about the boss but I guess the multiplier effect would allow many to get away from the humility?

I thank you
Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa