It’s Not My Fault – I’m Not Responsible

In a 2006 internal memo to underground mine managers, Blankenship’s exasperation with what he saw as excessive caution was evident: As the New York Times reported, in the memo, Mr. Don Blankenship (CEO of Massey Energy Corporation) instructed the company’s underground mine superintendents to place coal production first.

“This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills,” he said.

(read about this here).

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Here’s a business book that needs to be written.  How to Handle a Real Mistake – I Mean, a Real Whopper.

There is a long list of people who should not write this book:  The CEO of Massey Energy Corporation, the CEO of Toyota, Alan Greenspan.  And the list is really much longer.  They all seem to have the same message, that in one way or another, is this message:

“It’s Not My Fault – I’m Not Responsible.”

Now, of course, I do not believe that the CEO of Massey Mining personally caused the death of those miners (though his company is certainly negligent; possibly criminally negligent), nor did Greenspan personally cause the crash, nor did the CEO of Toyota personally design the flawed vehicles.  But in each case, and many more, the warning signs were clear, and no leaders stepped up and yelled fire loudly enough to clear the theater.

And if you listen to interviews with such people, especially Don Blankenship of Massey Energy, they come across as evasive (and, though this is quite subjective, there seems to be a genuine compassion shortage).

Whatever else business leadership is, it is this:  the leader assumes and takes and acknowledges responsibility.

And I assume we have now learned this truth (although, many do not seem to have fully grasped it):  there will be big time mistakes made in companies.

Some of these mistakes or deficiencies can be life threatening.  And it is the job of a leader to say, “if we find a mistake, a deficiency, in our company that is life threatening, then we stop what we are doing, now, and solve this problem.  Now!”  Any failure to do this is a clear statement of priorities, and reveals the true priority — of profit over human life.

And I will state my bias – any leader that places profits over human life is not worthy of leadership at all.

The Wall Street meltdown may not have endangered human life like Massey Energy and Toyota, but the tendency to say, in one way or another, “It’s not my fault – I’m not responsible” is not the kind of leadership we need in this very difficult era.

Someone needs to actually lead!