Page 120 - Fearless Leadership

Victim Mentality and Playing Small 107

There is no blame or shame in the model of 100% accountability; there
is only taking accountability, working in committed partnerships, and
learning from your mistakes. This model reverses the automatic process
of shrinking the game and playing small, and it introduces a way to recover
quickly. Instead of an environment in which people form and harbor
resentments, and wallow in regrets about what they or others should have
done, positive and aligned action advances the business.
Transformation can happen quickly once you learn how to intervene
between what happens and your automatic behavior. This is what tran-
spired when a company faced a community crisis in which senior leaders
could easily have become defensive and been seen as the persecutor.

Taking Accountability with the Customer and
Community in a Crisis

A crisis occurred when a fire broke out in a residential neighborhood
resulting in numerous injuries and a death. Although negligence was
not clear, many in the community assumed that faulty equipment
owned by our client sparked the fire. As happens often in a crisis,
leaders must make a clear and decisive choice: either accept account-
ability (not blame) and take ownership, or avoid it and become the
persecutor by default.

What Happened. We were in a leadership session with the top six
leaders of the company when the CEO, Larry, received the call about
the fire. The leaders were shaken by the news and their legal coun-
sel advised them to prepare for media interviews and not to admit
culpability. But taking the standard approach of “No comment; there
is insufficient information to determine what caused the fire” sim-
ply fuels the reaction and makes the company and its leaders the per-
secutors. On the other hand, “taking accountability” allows leaders
to express their concern, compassion, and commitment without
defending or blaming.
The CEO and senior leaders asked: “How can we take account-
ability and care for our community in this difficult situation?” They
demonstrated fearless leadership and shifted their focus from the stan-
dard response to being committed partners to the community. In a