I truly like your article on “Who do we trust” and appreciate the executive’s perspective. I honestly never looked at it that way.

But it begs the question, “At what point do you hold executives responsible for the success or failure of direct reports?” After all, when a GM gets an explanation of a performance problem, doesn’t it come from the executive’s view?

A former VP of Marketing at Morton Salt once told me that whenever he took over a new department, he would be told by the outgoing manager who the A, B and C players were. In most cases, he found that the assessments were just as often incorrect as correct.

It is just as likely that managers are disciplined or fired for the shortcomings of their superiors. After all there are lots of things an executive can do to influence the success (or failure) of their direct reports without doing their jobs for them.

Best,
-Karla K