When projects fail, organizations look for accountability. Someone needs to own the failure. Someone needs to take blame.
That someone is usually a middle manager.
Not because middle managers caused the failure. Most failures are structural. Unrealistic deadlines, insufficient resources, conflicting priorities, technical debt, unclear requirements. These are organizational decisions that happen above middle management.
But organizations don’t blame systems or executives. They blame the person in the middle. The one who was supposed to deliver despite structural constraints. The one who represents the team upward and represents leadership downward.
Middle managers absorb blame for decisions they didn’t make, resources they couldn’t access, and constraints they couldn’t change. This absorption is implicit in the role. It’s how organizations preserve executive credibility and individual contributor morale simultaneously.
The cost is borne by the person in between. Their reputation erodes. Their career stalls. Their stress compounds. Eventually they burn out or leave.
Organizations replace them and repeat the cycle. The blame absorption function is structural, not personal. The next middle manager will absorb blame the same way.
This isn’t accountability. Accountability assigns responsibility to those who have authority and control. Blame absorption assigns responsibility to those positioned structurally to take it regardless of actual causation.
Understanding the difference matters. Organizations that confuse the two create systems that punish middle managers for organizational dysfunction they’re powerless to fix.
Why Middle Managers Are Structurally Positioned to Absorb Blame
Blame doesn’t flow randomly. It follows organizational structure. Middle managers sit at the convergence point where blame accumulates naturally.
They’re Visible Enough to Target but Not Powerful Enough to Deflect
Executives are insulated from blame by authority and distance. They make strategic decisions. If outcomes fail, the failure is attributed to execution, not strategy.
Individual contributors are insulated by lack of authority. They execute what they’re told. If outcomes fail, they weren’t empowered to make different decisions.
Middle managers are visible in the delivery chain but lack power to deflect blame upward or downward. They’re close enough to execution to be held accountable but lack executive authority to claim strategic immunity.
When something fails, organizations need a target. Middle managers are the visible, accessible target without the power to protect themselves.
They Represent Organizational Decisions as Personal Commitments
Middle managers translate executive strategy into team commitments. An executive says “we need to ship this quarter.” The middle manager tells their team “we’re shipping this quarter.”
To the team, this commitment came from their manager. To the executive, the team committed. The middle manager becomes the owner of a decision they didn’t make.
When the quarter ends and the product doesn’t ship, who failed? Not the executive who set an unrealistic timeline. Not the team who executed to capacity. The middle manager who “committed” to an impossible deadline.
The organizational decision became a personal commitment in translation. The blame follows.
They Lack Authority to Surface Root Causes Safely
When failures happen, middle managers often understand root causes. Insufficient resourcing, technical debt, conflicting priorities, unrealistic scope. These are organizational issues.
But middle managers can’t surface these causes without political risk. Saying “we failed because leadership didn’t provide enough resources” is career limiting. Saying “we failed because the timeline was unrealistic” questions executive judgment.
So middle managers absorb blame instead. They frame failures as execution issues. They take responsibility for outcomes determined by factors outside their control.
This protects organizational harmony. It also ensures root causes remain unaddressed. The same structural failures recur. Different middle managers absorb blame each time.
They Buffer Executives from Reputational Damage
Executive credibility matters for organizational confidence. If leadership is seen as making bad decisions, the organization loses faith.
Middle managers provide a buffer. When executive decisions lead to failure, middle managers reframe the failure as execution shortfall. The strategy was sound. The execution fell short.
This preserves executive credibility at the cost of middle manager reputation. The executive who set unrealistic timelines maintains their image as ambitious and visionary. The middle manager who couldn’t deliver appears incompetent or weak.
The organization benefits from stable executive credibility. The middle manager pays the cost.
They Shield Individual Contributors from Career Damage
Individual contributors need psychological safety to remain productive. If they’re blamed for every failure, morale collapses.
Middle managers absorb blame that would otherwise hit their team. An engineer makes a mistake that causes an outage. The middle manager owns it upward as a process failure. The engineer learns without taking career damage.
This is good management. It protects team members and enables learning. But it accumulates blame on the middle manager.
Over time, middle managers develop reputations as sources of problems even when they’re absorbing blame for issues across their team.
The Types of Blame Middle Managers Absorb
Blame comes in different forms. Middle managers absorb multiple types simultaneously. Organizations rarely acknowledge how much or what kind.
Blame for Structural Constraints Framed as Execution Failures
A project gets half the headcount it needs. The timeline doesn’t adjust. The middle manager delivers late with partial functionality.
The organizational failure is resourcing. The executive decision was to understaff the project. But that’s not what gets blamed.
The middle manager “failed to deliver on time.” Their team “didn’t execute efficiently.” The resourcing decision disappears from the narrative. The execution failure becomes the story.
This pattern is common. Insufficient resources, unrealistic timelines, conflicting priorities. These are executive decisions that constrain execution. They get reframed as middle management execution failures.
The middle manager absorbs blame for being unable to do the impossible.
Blame for Strategic Incoherence Framed as Poor Planning
Leadership sets conflicting priorities. Everything is important. No trade-offs are explicit. The middle manager tries to execute all of it. Nothing gets finished well.
The organizational failure is strategic clarity. Leadership didn’t make hard calls. But that’s not what gets blamed.
The middle manager “failed to prioritize effectively.” They “spread the team too thin.” The strategic incoherence disappears. The planning failure becomes the story.
This pattern recurs in organizations with unclear strategy. Middle managers absorb blame for executing incoherent direction as if it were their planning failure.
Blame for Technical Debt Accumulation Framed as Poor Delivery
Organizations accumulate technical debt through years of deadline pressure and deferred maintenance. Eventually the debt creates friction. New features take longer. Systems become fragile.
The organizational failure is systematic underinvestment in technical health. Leadership prioritized features over infrastructure for years. But that’s not what gets blamed.
The current middle manager “isn’t delivering fast enough.” Their team “isn’t productive.” The accumulated technical debt disappears. The current velocity becomes the problem.
This is especially destructive because the middle manager likely inherited the debt. They’re blamed for systemic issues created before they arrived.
Blame for Individual Mistakes Aggregated as Management Failure
Individual contributors make mistakes. This is normal. People are human. Mistakes happen.
But when mistakes happen repeatedly or visibly, blame aggregates to the middle manager. They “aren’t managing quality.” They “aren’t catching errors.” They “need better processes.”
Sometimes this is fair. Management includes creating systems that prevent or catch mistakes.
Often it’s not. The mistake was unforeseeable. Or the organization doesn’t provide resources for quality systems. Or the pressure for speed makes careful work impossible.
The middle manager absorbs blame for individual errors as systemic management failure even when the system is under-resourced or structurally flawed.
Blame for Organizational Dysfunction as Leadership Weakness
Organizations have dysfunction. Broken processes, political conflicts, misaligned incentives, poor tooling. These are systemic issues requiring executive intervention.
But when this dysfunction impacts a team’s delivery, blame lands on the middle manager. They “aren’t navigating the organization effectively.” They “aren’t influencing stakeholders.” They’re not “adapting to company culture.”
The organizational dysfunction disappears. The middle manager’s inability to work around it becomes their failure.
This is particularly insidious. It blames middle managers for not compensating adequately for systemic problems they have no authority to fix.
How Organizations Weaponize Blame Absorption
Blame absorption isn’t accidental. Organizations create structures that ensure middle managers absorb blame even when causation lies elsewhere.
Performance Reviews That Assess Outcomes Without Examining Constraints
Middle managers get evaluated on team delivery. Did the project ship? Did it meet requirements? Was it on time?
These outcome metrics ignore constraints. Was the project adequately resourced? Was the timeline realistic? Were requirements stable?
A middle manager who delivers 80% of an impossible project with half the needed resources has succeeded. A middle manager who delivers 100% of an easy project with abundant resources hasn’t accomplished as much.
But performance reviews rarely account for this. They measure outcomes against commitments. The constraints that made commitments unrealistic are invisible.
This structure ensures middle managers absorb blame for failing to overcome impossible constraints.
Upward Feedback Systems That Punish Honest Risk Reporting
Middle managers are supposed to report risks upward. This is their job. Surface issues early so the organization can respond.
But organizations often punish honest risk reporting. Report too many risks and you’re labeled negative or not a team player. Flag resource constraints and you’re not being creative enough. Question timelines and you lack commitment.
This creates perverse incentives. Middle managers who report risks accurately get blamed for creating problems. Middle managers who hide risks and fail later get blamed for failing.
Either way, they absorb blame. But hiding risks at least delays it.
Organizations create this dynamic by treating risk reporting as disloyalty rather than valuable information.
Accountability Frameworks That Ignore Authority Gaps
Organizations implement accountability frameworks. OKRs, performance goals, delivery commitments. Middle managers are held accountable for achieving these.
But accountability without authority is blame absorption. If a middle manager is accountable for outcomes but lacks authority over resources, priorities, or strategic direction, they can’t actually control outcomes.
They can influence. They can optimize. They can work harder. But they can’t guarantee delivery when fundamental constraints are outside their control.
Organizations ignore this. They assign outcome accountability and call it empowerment. When outcomes don’t materialize, they blame the accountable person regardless of authority gaps.
Post-Mortem Processes That Stop at the Middle Layer
When failures happen, organizations conduct post-mortems. These are supposed to identify root causes and prevent recurrence.
In practice, most post-mortems stop at middle management. The process identifies what the middle manager could have done differently. Better planning, clearer communication, more aggressive prioritization.
The analysis rarely goes deeper. Why was the timeline unrealistic? Why were resources insufficient? Why did strategic priorities conflict? These questions implicate executive decisions.
Post-mortems that stop at middle management ensure blame stays there. The organizational and executive factors that created failure conditions remain unexamined.
Promotion Criteria That Reward Blame Deflection
Organizations claim to value accountability. In practice, they promote people who deflect blame effectively.
Middle managers who absorb blame develop reputations as weak or ineffective. Middle managers who deflect blame upward or downward appear strong.
This creates incentives to avoid blame absorption. The organizational function that keeps the system stable becomes career limiting.
Effective middle managers who absorb blame to protect their teams and preserve executive credibility get punished for it. The ones who optimize for their own reputation at the expense of organizational harmony get promoted.
The Personal Cost of Chronic Blame Absorption
Absorbing blame occasionally is manageable. Absorbing blame chronically is destructive. Middle managers pay for it in multiple ways.
Reputational Erosion That Outlasts the Context
Blame sticks. A middle manager absorbs blame for a structural failure. They move to a new team or project. The blame follows.
They’re remembered as the person who failed to deliver. The context disappears. The structural constraints that made delivery impossible are forgotten. The reputation remains.
Over time, middle managers who absorb blame repeatedly develop organizational reputations as underperformers. This happens even if they’re consistently performing well given actual constraints.
Reputational damage is hard to repair. It persists across projects, teams, and sometimes companies. It compounds until it becomes career defining.
Imposter Syndrome Induced by Misattributed Failure
Middle managers who absorb blame for structural failures start questioning their competence. Maybe they really are bad at planning. Maybe they really can’t manage teams effectively. Maybe they deserve the blame.
This is organizationally induced imposter syndrome. The manager is competent. But when you absorb blame repeatedly for failures outside your control, self-doubt is natural.
Organizations create this by consistently blaming middle managers while obscuring root causes. The manager lacks information to distinguish real performance issues from structural blame absorption.
The psychological cost is significant. Talented people leave roles they’re good at because they’ve been convinced they’re failing.
Learned Helplessness from Uncontrollable Outcomes
Middle managers who absorb blame for outcomes they can’t control develop learned helplessness. Effort doesn’t correlate with results. Structural constraints determine outcomes regardless of management quality.
This creates disengagement. Why work harder if outcomes are predetermined by under-resourcing? Why plan carefully if timelines are unrealistic regardless?
Organizations lose the engagement and creativity of their middle managers. They become cynical executors who know they’ll absorb blame regardless of effort.
The organization created this by repeatedly punishing people for outcomes outside their control.
Career Stagnation from Accumulated Blame
Middle managers who absorb blame don’t get promoted. They have a track record of “failures” even when those failures were structural.
Promotion committees see delivery misses, missed deadlines, quality issues. They don’t see the impossible constraints those middle managers navigated.
Career paths close. The middle manager plateaus or gets managed out. The organization loses someone who absorbed blame to keep the system functional.
New middle managers arrive. They absorb blame the same way. The cycle repeats.
Burnout from Constant Psychological Defense
Absorbing blame is psychologically taxing. It requires constant self-defense. Explaining context. Documenting constraints. Framing failures. Managing perception.
This work is invisible. It happens in one-on-ones with leadership, in performance reviews, in casual conversations. It’s exhausting.
Middle managers who absorb chronic blame burn out from the constant need to defend themselves against misattributed failure.
The organization loses them. Their institutional knowledge disappears. The next person starts the cycle fresh.
What Happens When Middle Managers Refuse to Absorb Blame
Blame absorption isn’t mandatory. Middle managers can refuse. The consequences reveal how structurally dependent organizations are on this function.
Blame Flows Upward to Executive Decisions
When middle managers refuse to absorb blame, they deflect it upward. “We failed because the timeline was unrealistic.” “We missed the deadline because we were under-resourced.” “Quality suffered because leadership prioritized speed.”
This is accurate. It surfaces root causes. It should enable organizational learning.
Instead, it’s career limiting. Middle managers who blame executive decisions are labeled not team players, political, or difficult. They’re managed out.
Organizations reveal their preference. They’d rather maintain executive credibility than address root causes.
Blame Flows Downward to Individual Contributors
Alternatively, middle managers deflect blame downward. “The team didn’t execute well.” “Individual performance was subpar.” “We had the resources but didn’t use them effectively.”
This protects the middle manager’s reputation. It destroys team morale and psychological safety.
Team members lose trust. They stop taking risks. They document defensively. Collaboration suffers. The best people leave.
Organizations lose more than they gain. Protecting one middle manager’s reputation by destroying team dynamics is expensive.
Organizational Learning Stops
Blame absorption, while personally costly, enables a form of organizational stability. It allows failures to occur without political warfare over who caused them.
When middle managers refuse to absorb blame, every failure becomes a battle. Who’s responsible? Who should be punished? Whose career should suffer?
This political warfare consumes energy. It prevents learning. Organizations spend time assigning blame instead of fixing systems.
Paradoxically, chronic blame absorption enables more organizational learning than honest blame attribution because it removes political stakes from failure analysis.
This doesn’t justify exploitation. It explains why organizations are structurally dependent on blame absorption even though it’s unjust.
The Organization Discovers Its Structural Dysfunctions
When enough middle managers refuse to absorb blame, structural issues become undeniable. Unrealistic timelines, insufficient resourcing, strategic incoherence, technical debt.
These issues were always present. Middle managers were absorbing the consequences. When they stop, the consequences hit leadership directly.
This can force organizational improvement. Leadership has to address root causes because no buffer exists.
Or it creates instability. Leadership can’t acknowledge their decisions caused failures. They double down on blaming execution. Middle manager turnover accelerates.
Which outcome occurs depends on organizational culture and executive character.
How to Distinguish Accountability from Blame Absorption
Not all responsibility is blame absorption. Middle managers should be accountable for things within their control. The distinction matters.
Accountability Requires Corresponding Authority
Real accountability pairs responsibility with authority. You’re accountable for outcomes you can meaningfully influence.
A middle manager with budget authority, hiring authority, and decision rights can be fairly held accountable for team outcomes. They had tools to shape results.
A middle manager without these authorities can’t be held accountable the same way. They can be evaluated on effort, judgment, and optimization within constraints. But outcome accountability without authority is blame absorption.
Organizations that assign outcome responsibility without authority are structuring for blame absorption, not accountability.
Accountability Examines Decisions, Not Just Outcomes
Fair accountability evaluates decisions given information available at decision time. Did the middle manager make reasonable calls with the information they had?
Blame absorption focuses only on outcomes. The decision process is irrelevant. If results failed, the person responsible failed.
This ignores that good decisions sometimes have bad outcomes. Under uncertainty, optimal choices can fail.
Organizations that evaluate only outcomes encourage risk aversion and decision avoidance. Middle managers who are blamed for bad outcomes regardless of decision quality stop making decisions.
Accountability Includes Systemic Analysis
Fair accountability asks why failures happened. It examines systemic factors. Were constraints reasonable? Were resources adequate? Was the strategy coherent?
Blame absorption stops analysis at the individual. The middle manager failed. No deeper investigation needed.
This prevents organizational learning. The same structural issues cause repeated failures with different middle managers.
Organizations that stop analysis at middle management are optimizing for blame assignment, not improvement.
Accountability Distributes Learning, Not Just Punishment
The purpose of accountability is improvement. What can we learn? How do we prevent recurrence?
Blame absorption is about punishment. Who failed? Who should suffer consequences?
These are different goals. Accountability enables learning. Blame absorption satisfies the need to punish someone.
Organizations that treat accountability as punishment create cultures where people hide mistakes, avoid risks, and document defensively.
Structural Changes That Reduce Harmful Blame Absorption
Blame absorption is structural. Individual middle managers can’t fix it. Organizations need systemic changes.
Separate Outcome Accountability from Resource Authority
Organizations should stop holding middle managers accountable for outcomes when they lack authority over resources.
Either grant authority or change accountability. Hold middle managers accountable for decision quality, team development, and optimization within constraints. Hold executives accountable for outcomes given their authority over resources.
This clarifies who’s responsible for what. It prevents blame absorption for under-resourcing while maintaining useful accountability.
Implement Blame-Aware Post-Mortem Processes
Post-mortems should explicitly look past middle management to organizational and executive factors.
Mandate that every post-mortem ask: Were resources adequate? Was the timeline realistic? Were strategic priorities clear? Did executives make decisions that constrained success?
These questions are uncomfortable. They implicate leadership. But they identify real root causes.
Organizations that avoid these questions ensure the same failures recur with different middle managers absorbing blame each time.
Create Upward Feedback Mechanisms with Anonymity Protections
Middle managers need safe ways to surface structural issues without career risk.
Anonymous feedback channels, skip-level conversations with confidentiality, third-party facilitated retrospectives. These enable honest reporting without blame absorption consequences.
Organizations that punish middle managers for surfacing executive decision quality as a constraint lose access to valuable information.
Assess Middle Managers on Constraint-Adjusted Metrics
Performance reviews should account for constraints. Delivering 70% of an impossible project is better than 100% of an easy one.
This requires evaluating not just outcomes but difficulty. Was the project well-resourced or under-resourced? Was the timeline realistic or aggressive? Were requirements stable or shifting?
Middle managers working under severe constraints should be recognized for navigating them, not blamed for not overcoming them entirely.
Build Executive Accountability for Strategic Decisions
Executives should be held accountable for the quality of strategic decisions, not just shielded by middle management blame absorption.
Track executive decisions and their outcomes. Were timeline estimates realistic? Did resource allocation match priorities? Were strategic pivots well-communicated?
This creates incentive for better executive decision-making. It also reduces pressure on middle managers to absorb blame for bad executive calls.
The Organizations That Minimize Harmful Blame Absorption
Some organizations reduce harmful blame absorption without eliminating accountability. They share structural characteristics.
They Practice Blameless Post-Mortems
These organizations separate learning from punishment. Post-mortems focus on systemic improvement, not individual fault.
Failures are examined for root causes at all levels. Executive decisions, organizational processes, resource constraints, individual errors. Everything is discussable.
This doesn’t eliminate accountability. People are still responsible for their decisions. But accountability is about improvement, not punishment.
Middle managers in these organizations don’t need to absorb blame to protect the system. The system protects learning instead.
They Grant Middle Managers Real Decision Authority
These organizations give middle managers authority matching their responsibility. Budget control, hiring decisions, priority sequencing within strategic bounds.
When middle managers have real authority, outcome accountability is fair. They can actually shape results.
This doesn’t eliminate all blame absorption. Structural constraints still exist. But it reduces the gap between authority and responsibility.
They Promote Based on Constraint-Adjusted Performance
These organizations evaluate middle managers relative to their actual operating environment. Someone delivering well under severe constraints is recognized over someone delivering adequately with abundant resources.
This requires judgment. It can’t be fully automated. But it prevents the perverse outcome where middle managers absorbing the hardest problems develop worst reputations.
They Create Safe Channels for Surfacing Root Causes
These organizations make it safe to say “we failed because of inadequate resourcing” or “the timeline was unrealistic.”
Skip-level meetings, anonymous feedback, structured retrospectives that explicitly examine executive decisions. These channels allow truth-telling without career risk.
Middle managers can surface root causes instead of absorbing blame for them.
They Rotate Leaders Through Middle Management
Organizations where executives have served as middle managers understand the blame absorption dynamic firsthand.
They’re less likely to structure for exploitation. They know what it’s like to be blamed for executive decisions. They create more equitable accountability systems.
Rotating leaders through middle management builds empathy and improves organizational design.
What Middle Managers Can Do Within Broken Systems
Structural change is ideal. But individual middle managers often work in systems they can’t reform. Strategies exist for reducing personal damage.
Document Constraints Explicitly and Repeatedly
Create paper trails. Email leadership about resource shortfalls, timeline concerns, and conflicting priorities before failures materialize.
This won’t prevent blame entirely. But it provides evidence that you surfaced issues early. Future you, defending your reputation, will appreciate the documentation.
Don’t frame this defensively. Frame it as risk reporting. “I want to ensure we’re aligned on timeline risks given current resourcing.”
The documentation may not change outcomes. It changes the story when outcomes fail.
Negotiate Authority Before Accepting Responsibility
When given outcome responsibility, clarify authority. “To deliver this, I’ll need budget authority for X, hiring authority for Y, and decision rights over Z. Can we align on that?”
If the authority isn’t granted, negotiate the responsibility. “Without those authorities, I can commit to optimizing within constraints, but I can’t guarantee the outcome.”
This is uncomfortable. It risks appearing uncommitted. But accepting responsibility without authority is accepting future blame absorption.
Build Peer Networks for Perspective
Middle management is isolating. Peer networks provide perspective. Are you actually underperforming or absorbing structural blame? Other middle managers can help you distinguish.
They’ve navigated similar dynamics. They can validate your experience and share strategies. This reduces the imposter syndrome that chronic blame absorption creates.
Know When to Leave
Some organizations are structurally committed to blame absorption. No amount of individual strategy changes that.
Recognize the pattern. Repeated blame for structural issues. Leadership unwilling to address root causes. Post-mortems that stop at your level. Performance reviews that ignore constraints.
If the pattern is consistent, the organization won’t change. Your reputation will continue eroding. Leave before the damage becomes career-defining.
Good middle managers are valuable. Organizations that don’t recognize this don’t deserve to keep them.
The Real Cost Is Organizational, Not Just Individual
The individual cost of blame absorption is visible. Burnout, reputational damage, career stagnation, psychological harm. These matter.
The organizational cost is larger and less obvious. Organizations that rely on blame absorption create several pathologies.
They Lose Their Best Middle Managers First
The most talented middle managers have options. They recognize blame absorption patterns. They leave.
What remains are people with fewer options or less awareness. The average quality of middle management declines.
Organizations blame this on talent availability. The real issue is that they drove good people away by structuring for blame absorption.
They Prevent Organizational Learning
Blame absorption obscures root causes. The same structural issues cause repeated failures. Each time, a different middle manager absorbs blame.
The organization never learns. Technical debt accumulates. Unrealistic timelines continue. Resource allocation stays broken.
Organizations plateau or decline because they can’t learn from failures when blame absorption prevents root cause analysis.
They Create Cultures of Defensive Documentation
Middle managers in blame-absorbing organizations learn to document defensively. Every decision, every conversation, every risk gets recorded as protection.
This creates overhead. It also signals distrust. People don’t document to enable collaboration. They document to redistribute blame.
Collaboration suffers. Information sharing declines. The organization becomes slower and more political.
They Encourage Risk Aversion
Middle managers who get blamed for outcomes outside their control become risk-averse. They avoid ambitious projects. They sandbag estimates. They pursue only sure things.
Organizations lose innovation and velocity. The middle managers are behaving rationally. But organizational performance declines.
They Make Execution Increasingly Difficult
As good middle managers leave and defensive behaviors increase, execution becomes harder. Coordination fails. Information doesn’t flow. Risk isn’t managed well.
Organizations need more middle managers to accomplish the same work. Or they collapse middle management entirely and discover the work was real.
Either way, the cost is higher than building systems that don’t rely on harmful blame absorption.
The Choice Organizations Face
Blame needs to go somewhere. When failures happen, someone is responsible. Organizations have choices about how to assign that responsibility.
They can assign it based on actual causation. This means executives own consequences of their decisions. Resource allocation, strategic clarity, timeline setting. When these drive failure, executives are accountable.
Or they can assign it based on structural convenience. This means middle managers absorb blame regardless of causation. They’re positioned between layers. They’re visible, accessible, and lack power to deflect.
Most organizations choose the second option. It’s politically easier. Executive credibility is preserved. Individual contributors feel protected. Middle managers absorb the cost.
This is sustainable only if middle managers are replaceable and their wellbeing doesn’t matter. Some organizations operate on this assumption explicitly.
But it’s expensive. Good people leave. Organizational learning stops. Defensive cultures emerge. Execution degrades.
The organizations that choose causation-based accountability are harder to work in as an executive. Your decisions get examined. Your judgment is accountable. You can’t hide behind execution failures.
But they’re better organizations. They learn faster. They keep talented middle managers. They execute more effectively over time.
The choice is real. Most organizations don’t make it consciously. They drift into blame absorption as a structural default.
Making it conscious is the first step toward changing it.
Middle managers shouldn’t be organizational blame sinks. They should be accountable for what they control and supported in what they don’t.
Organizations that understand this distinction build better systems. Organizations that don’t keep burning through middle managers and wondering why execution is hard.
The answer is usually visible in how blame flows. Follow it to the structural truth.