I found it disturbing to read an article in yesterday’s St. Petersburg Times entitled “This was not our fault” by business columnist Robert Trigaux.

The caption was …”Finding folks to own up to our economic crisis is tough”. The article highlighted 20 people who contributed to the mess, although none of them have accepted much responsibility – if any.  US presidents, former banking and investment company CEO’s, heads of government agencies charged with oversight, real estate association directors and even our former Federal Reserve Chairman are among these 20 and many have said things like….

 

“It wasn’t my job”

“I wasn’t aware of any problems on my watch”

“Gee, I’m sorry. Can I go back to my limo and penthouse now?”

 

According to Trigaux, the more hearings that are held, “the more we end up with the same third-grade version of “it’s not my fault”.

As someone in the corporate HR world, I find it disheartening to think about how these high-profile “leaders” who shift blame and minimize their accountability will ultimately impact the leaders and managers in our own organizations.

It seems that those of us who design and implement  leadership development programs will have to work even harder to provide experiences – both in the classroom and on the job – that can help  counteract  public examples of poor leadership. We’ll need to expose leaders to models of behavior and best practices that demonstrate high standards, ethical decision-making and personal integrity.  

Simulations, case studies and behavior modeling  approaches in the classroom, as well as mentoring and coaching programs on the job , will be more important than ever.

In one of our discovery learning programs, Impact 5: The Game of Leadership Accountability,  for example, we use a simulated experience to help managers understand the criticality of living up to five leadership accountabilities that impact personal and organizational success.  In the simulation, learners are presented with ethical dilemmas, difficult personnel decisions, trade-offs of short and long term results, financial investment options and more, and have to decide how to handle them with integrity, honesty and fairness.  They also learn to assess situations from three perspectives – the impact on the bottom line, the impact on customers and the impact on employees and the organization.  Armed with models of behavior that they can use in real-life situations, and with reinforcement and follow up on the job, leaders can be better at judging situations and making appropriate choices.

The Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission made a final poignant comment to one of the financial CEO’s last week:

“Either you were pulling the levers or you were asleep at the switch. Leadership and responsibility matter”.

Yes, they do.