Why the blame game weakens leadership
Over the past week, politics has been defined by an almost real-time rush to aportion blame in crisis situations. In the UK, the departures of Lord Mandelson and Angela Rayner were quickly cast as personal failures by the Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In the US, within hours of the killing of commentator Charlie Kirk, blame was directed to left wing protestors before facts were established.
The uncomfortable common thread is a reflex to name a culprit before finding clarity. For any organisation in crisis, that instinct carries consequences. Information becomes distorted as attention goes to finding then punishing a scapegoat. Leaders, organisations act without full visibility of what has happened.
When blame dominates the response, there are three outcomes:
Internal culture weakens as teams focus on self-protection rather than openly acknolwedging and taking accountability for what has gone wrong.
Leaders become defensive focussing on short term, reactive fixes rather than addressing the root causes of what happened.
Reputation suffers as stakeholders see scapegoating an individual rather than a credible corrective course of action.
This is especially damaging when trust in public institutions is already so low. According to the OECD in the UK, only 27% of people say they trust national government, compared with an OECD average above 40%. Edelman’s latest Trust Barometer finds that 61% of people believe business leaders are ‘purposely trying to mislead’ by exaggerating or hiding the truth. In this context, leaders who default to blame are likely to be seen as less, not more, trustworthy.
Avoiding blame is not about avoiding responsibility. In my experience, the most credible leaders and effective organisations are those who, in the wake of a crisis, set out quickly what is known and what remains uncertain, taking accountability for the present and what will happen next. They define what will change, making clear which processes, structures or behaviours will be reviewed. And they bring others into the solution including colleagues, partners, shareholders and communities to listen to concerns, co create responses and deliver a response that will strengthen resilience. Strategically, the narrative is shifted from punishment to progress showing that truth and transparency matters more than defensiveness.
In a crisis, blame can feel decisive but the likely outcome is that leaders, organisations, will see an erosion of credibility, culture and reputation. Effective leadership in a crisis relies not on apportioning blame but instead on transparency, accountability then evolving having learnt from what happened.
