Managers who rush to blame staff for a failed project may be overlooking their own part in the outcome. A business advice piece published by Entrepreneur argues that real accountability starts with the conditions a leader has created, and that owners who treat accountability as something that simply flows down the organisational chart miss the source of many recurring mistakes.
The central proposition is that errors by team members are often symptoms of how work has been set up. Unclear priorities, unrealistic deadlines, weak communication or a lack of the resources needed to do the job can all make mistakes more likely. The article recommends that leaders ask a set of questions about their own decisions before deciding that an individual or team is responsible for a failure.
The advice reflects a wider theme in management writing, in which leadership style and workplace culture are treated as shaping performance as much as individual skill. For smaller companies in particular, where owners often set processes informally, the argument is that the founder's habits and expectations can quietly determine how staff behave under pressure.
Related reporting from Fortune offers a parallel view from a very different setting. The president of the Golden State Valkyries, the WNBA franchise estimated to be worth $1 billion, has said she rejects the idea of work-life balance and prefers to focus on gratitude. Jess Smith, who has held the role since 2024, described her approach in an interview: «I don't subscribe to work-life balance, because it makes you try to set something up for failure versus I really try to live in gratitude.» She said she has been open with her two children about her love of work, and that the team's roughly 88 full-time staff are encouraged to take time off and rest.
Smith has also said that self-care is non-negotiable for her staff, and that managers have been asked to remind employees of their two work-from-home weeks and of the November and December off-season as opportunities to recover. She said that taking leave requires planning ahead, so that employees can genuinely step away. Her comments suggest that leaders who set clear expectations about rest and workload are attempting to shape the conditions under which their teams perform, a theme that echoes the central argument of the Entrepreneur piece.
The same reporting noted that the Valkyries became the first WNBA expansion team to reach the playoffs in their debut year, and that the franchise sold 10,000 season tickets before its inaugural season. Smith had previously held roles across Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer, including leading revenue at Angel City FC.
Fortune also reported on the operations of Spirit Halloween, whose chief executive, Steven Silverstein, said the seasonal chain runs year-round in planning terms. Silverstein, who leads Spencer Spirit Holdings, told Fortune: «There's nothing temporary about a temporary store.» He said the company works around the clock, and that its stores open for eight to 10 weeks a year, while planning for the following Halloween begins before the current season's doors close. The remainder of the year is spent signing leases and making and shipping millions of costumes.
Taken together, the Entrepreneur advice and the leadership accounts from Fortune point to a common idea: the systems a leader builds, including expectations, planning and the treatment of staff, shape how teams succeed or fail. For managers weighing where a mistake originated, the article's suggestion is to examine those conditions before turning to individual blame.