For me, the key question in situations when leaders made a decision with really bad consequences is, “How did they engage with criticism and opposing views?”
If they did well on this front, then I don’t think it’s at all mandatory to push for leadership changes (though certainly, the worse someones track record gets, the more that speaks against them).
By contrast, if leaders tried to make the opposition look stupid or if they otherwise used their influence to dampen the reach of opposing views, then being wrong later is unacceptable.
Basically, I want to allow for a situation where someone was like, “this is a tough call and I can see reasons why others wouldn’t agree with me, but I think we should do this,” and then ends up being wrong, but I don’t want to allow situations where someone is wrong after having expressed something more like, “listen to me, I know better than you, go away.”
In the first situation, it might still be warranted to push for leadership changes (esp. if there’s actually a better alternative), but I don’t see it as mandatory.
The author of the original short form says we need to hold leaders accountable for bad decisions because otherwise the incentives are wrong. I agree with that, but I think it’s being too crude to tie incentives to whether a decision looks right or wrong in hindsight. We can do better and evaluate how someone went about making a decision and how they handled opposing views. (Basically, if opposing views aren’t loud enough that you’d have to actively squish them using your influence illegitimately, then the mistake isn’t just yours as the leader; it’s also that the situation wasn’t significantly obvious to others around you.) I expect that everyone who has strong opinions on things and is ambitious and agenty in a leadership position is going to make some costly mistakes. The incentives shouldn’t be such that leaders shy away from consequential interventions.
For me, the key question in situations when leaders made a decision with really bad consequences is, “How did they engage with criticism and opposing views?”
If they did well on this front, then I don’t think it’s at all mandatory to push for leadership changes (though certainly, the worse someones track record gets, the more that speaks against them).
By contrast, if leaders tried to make the opposition look stupid or if they otherwise used their influence to dampen the reach of opposing views, then being wrong later is unacceptable.
Basically, I want to allow for a situation where someone was like, “this is a tough call and I can see reasons why others wouldn’t agree with me, but I think we should do this,” and then ends up being wrong, but I don’t want to allow situations where someone is wrong after having expressed something more like, “listen to me, I know better than you, go away.”
In the first situation, it might still be warranted to push for leadership changes (esp. if there’s actually a better alternative), but I don’t see it as mandatory.
The author of the original short form says we need to hold leaders accountable for bad decisions because otherwise the incentives are wrong. I agree with that, but I think it’s being too crude to tie incentives to whether a decision looks right or wrong in hindsight. We can do better and evaluate how someone went about making a decision and how they handled opposing views. (Basically, if opposing views aren’t loud enough that you’d have to actively squish them using your influence illegitimately, then the mistake isn’t just yours as the leader; it’s also that the situation wasn’t significantly obvious to others around you.) I expect that everyone who has strong opinions on things and is ambitious and agenty in a leadership position is going to make some costly mistakes. The incentives shouldn’t be such that leaders shy away from consequential interventions.