Accountability vs. Ownership: Lee McCabe Decodes Corporate ‘Theatre’ on LinkedIn

In a recent LinkedIn post, Lee McCabe explores the often-misunderstood concepts of accountability and ownership within organizations, arguing that many companies conflate the two, leading to a culture of performative responsibility rather than genuine empowerment.

McCabe begins by highlighting a fundamental disconnect he observes: “Everyone wants accountability. Very few want ownership.” He suggests that this discrepancy leads organizations to implement systems that create an illusion of shared responsibility without the necessary empowerment.

“Most organisations have turned accountability into theatre.”

The post delves into how job titles are frequently used to assign ‘ownership’ superficially. McCabe points out that individuals are often assigned responsibility for various aspects of a business – the sales funnel, vendor relationships, project timelines, budgets, and key performance indicators – without the commensurate authority to influence them.

The Illusion of ‘Ownership’

According to McCabe, this superficial assignment of ownership creates a challenging environment where individuals are held accountable for outcomes they cannot fully control. He elaborates:

“You’re accountable for a number you can’t price, a timeline you can’t control, a customer outcome you can’t redesign, a budget you can’t move, and a team you can’t hire. Decision rights sit elsewhere. Approvals sit everywhere. The work sits with you. The power doesn’t.”

This imbalance, as Lee McCabe explains, allows leaders to demand results without ceding any real power or control. This approach, he argues, is attractive because it scales easily and preserves optionality for leadership, enabling them to intervene later and appear decisive while mitigating their own risk.

The Efficiency of Inaction

McCabe contends that this dynamic fundamentally alters organizational culture, making processes more about documentation and justification than about actual progress or decision-making. He observes:

“Meetings become documentation, not decisions. Dashboards become proof of oversight, not proof of progress. ‘Alignment’ becomes a form of insurance.”

In Lee McCabe’s view, this system becomes highly efficient not at driving progress, but at explaining failures. He suggests that the structure allows for risk to be pushed downwards while authority remains concentrated at the top. This isn’t necessarily born from malice, but from a desire for a tidy, manageable system that offers plausible deniability and the appearance of robust governance.

Accountability as a Pre-Written Alibi

The core of McCabe’s argument is that in many corporate environments, the term ‘accountability’ is not a genuine driver of results but rather a mechanism for creating pre-approved excuses. He concludes:

“The uncomfortable bit is obvious once you see it: in a lot of companies, ‘accountability’ isn’t a path to outcomes, it’s a pre-written alibi.”

McCabe’s analysis prompts a critical re-evaluation of how businesses structure responsibility and decision-making, suggesting that true ownership requires not just the burden of the work, but also the power to shape its outcome.