I used to work for a leader who always took the ultimate accountability for results. On weekly calls he would frequently say, “The reality is we didn’t hit our goal and that’s on me.” He said it with pride, believing this approach built trust and loyalty with his team.
I thought he was humble. This is real leadership in action! Humility, vulnerability, and accountability are qualities we associate with strong leadership. They make people feel safe. They signal that mistakes will not be punished. But as he kept talking, something became clear. His team was not getting stronger. They were not solving problems faster. In fact, they were stuck. Every quarter ended the same way, with the same apology, and no meaningful change.
This is where the paradox emerges. At some point, accountability stops being accountability and starts being ego. When leaders constantly say “It’s my fault,” they believe they are being selfless, but in reality, they are keeping themselves at the center of the story. The applause after those speeches is not just about the team’s admiration for humility. It is also about reinforcing the idea that the leader is the hero, the one person holding everything together.
And when the leader is always at the center, the organization becomes fragile. When the leader absorbs every failure, teams learn to step back. They can stop taking ownership because the leader has already claimed it. They avoid risk because the leader will handle the fallout. They hesitate to innovate because, subconsciously, they know the spotlight will always shift back to the person at the top.
This creates a quieter form of micromanagement. It is not about controlling every detail of the work. It is about controlling the narrative. Micromanagers believe outcomes depend entirely on them, so they hover over every decision. Over-accountable leaders believe outcomes depend entirely on them too, but instead of hovering, they shoulder every failure and absorb every hit. Either way, the team’s ability to carry responsibility themselves weakens.
And the toll on leaders is enormous. When you carry every burden, burnout is inevitable. Over time, you isolate yourself. You stop trusting the people around you to deliver. You create a cycle where you take on more, then micromanage more, and eventually exhaust yourself completely. The organization ends up depending on you for stability, and the culture you have built is one where nothing works unless you are there to manage it. That is not sustainable.
True accountability looks different. It is not about being the hero who takes every fall. It is about creating a system where ownership is shared and capacity is built across the organization. Great leaders shift the focus away from personal blame and toward collective learning. Instead of saying, “It’s my fault,” they say, “Let’s understand what did not work.” And then they ask themselves, what experiences did I create to drive the wrong beliefs that led to the wrong actions and ultimately failed to get the desired result? That single shift changes the dynamic entirely. It invites the team into the process rather than placing the entire weight on one person’s shoulders. It shares the accountability rather than hoards it.
When you do this, people step up. They learn from mistakes. They feel empowered to lead. And over time, you create an organization where results do not depend on any one person’s heroics. You build something that lasts.
The hard truth is this: if your team cannot function without you, that is not a sign of your value. It is a sign that you have not built capacity. Leadership is not about being the center of every success and failure. It is about creating a culture that thrives without you. It is about building something that works when you are not in the room.
Elsewhere In Culture
https://www.businessinsider.com/no-shoes-policy-in-office-cursor-ceo-ben-lang-2025-8
There are two ways to look at this. Cursor, an AI startup valued at nearly $10 billion, has a no-shoes office policy and they are not alone. Twenty-five other startups have adopted similar rules, offering slippers at the door and even stipends to cover the cost. You can roll your eyes and call this the modern-day ping pong table, another quirky culture perk designed to make employees feel like work is more fun so they will stay longer and complain less. But there is another way to see it. Policies like this are not always about comfort. Sometimes they are an intentional attempt to shake up what we consider “professional” and challenge long standing expectations about how we are supposed to behave at work.
Here is the question leaders should be asking: what belief are we trying to create with this experience? Experiences shape beliefs. Beliefs drive actions. Actions produce results. A no-shoes policy might seem trivial, but the meaning behind it is where culture happens. Are leaders trying to foster a sense of home and belonging? Are they signaling that outdated norms no longer define professionalism? Or is this just another performative gesture designed to look innovative without addressing deeper cultural needs? The policy itself matters less than the intention behind it and whether it leads to the results leaders actually want. Workplace cultures are shaped by choices like this, big and small, and if leaders are not connecting those choices back to the beliefs they want their people to hold, they are leaving results up to chance. I’d love to see how the leaders at these companies are interpreting this experience.
Speaking of Silicon Valley norms…Silicon Valley loves to brand itself as the home of disruption, but according to former Meta executive and UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, it has quietly become the opposite. In a recent interview tied to his new book, Clegg called out what he describes as the “cloying conformity” of tech’s most powerful leaders. Everyone wears the same clothes, drives the same cars, listens to the same podcasts, and follows the same fads. For an industry that celebrates free thinking, he says it operates more like an echo chamber than a marketplace of ideas. What makes his critique even sharper is the paradox he highlights: many of these highly influential, wildly wealthy leaders see themselves as victims. Clegg described the “deeply unattractive combination of machismo and self-pity” that defines Silicon Valley’s culture today, where privilege masquerades as oppression and innovation risks collapsing into imitation.
There is an important lesson here for leaders everywhere. Cultures thrive when dissent is welcomed, not silenced by unspoken norms or status games. When leaders surround themselves with people who look like them, think like them, and consume the same information, they unintentionally build environments where real creativity dies. The strongest organizations are not the ones with the loudest visionary at the top. They are the ones where leaders design systems that invite diverse perspectives, challenge orthodoxy, and prioritize outcomes over ego. Clegg’s warning about Silicon Valley extends beyond tech. Any workplace that confuses conformity with alignment risks suffocating innovation and losing its edge. True disruption does not come from everyone dancing to the same song. It comes from leaders creating the conditions where people feel safe enough to play an entirely different tune.