That's Not Accountability
When teams underperform, the common move is to fire the manager. Why that often falls short and what those decisions signal to the rest of the organization.
It’s starting up again. Over the last week, the Red Sox and Phillies fired veteran managers Alex Cora and Rob Thomson.
When a manager is dismissed in-season — at least in recent memory — it’s safe to assume what the general manager is going to say.1 They’ll acknowledge that responsibility for the roster and the success of the organization falls on them, praise the outgoing manager for their professionalism, and explain the move with the need for a new voice.
If you don’t look too closely, the statements sound good, even if they are a bit repetitive. They paint the picture of a leader taking ownership and acting decisively for the good of the franchise. But on closer inspection, the sense of accountability doesn’t hold up.
In the same breath, the GM suggests they’re to blame for the team’s underperformance and as a result…someone else is being fired.
It’s almost as if they want to signal responsibility without taking the more difficult steps to enact real change.
And that’s what separates accountability from something that’s merely symbolic. It’s not enough to claim ownership; actions need to follow.
GMs — while ultimately responsible for the rosters — aren’t very well going to fire themselves when things are going poorly (even if some fans would prefer that). But that isn’t the only way to be accountable for underperformance.
When outcomes fall short, it’s worth asking why. A good place to start is with an honest assessment of the processes and decisions behind those results. There are likely ways the organization can improve or continue to evolve.
Evaluating inputs and then taking action based on those findings to promote change — that sounds more like accountability.
And there will be cases where that work points to a change in leadership. Managers should be fired at times.
But two things are usually true:
Far more often, the more accountable move is supporting that manager rather than replacing them.
If a change is necessary, it warrants a more complete explanation than the need for “a new voice.”
Finding a good manager is hard. The role demands so many things — leadership, communication, in-game decision-making, media relations — that it’s unrealistic to think anyone will excel at all of them.
That makes it even harder to believe that a new manager will be better, unless something fundamental has broken.
In many recent cases, the manager still commands respect, upholds the organization’s values, and makes daily effort to improve. Removing them — especially as the only form of action — might feign accountability, but it’s unlikely to do much.
A more accountable response would be to publicly support the manager and outline organizational changes in pursuit of better results.
It’s probably not a coincidence that the best organizations have the most continuity in leadership. Some would say their success allows for that stability, but those teams still have down seasons and fall short of expectations from time to time.
And yet, clubs like the Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians, and Milwaukee Brewers rarely fire leaders, and often promote from within when they do. The same is true for big market teams like the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. Despite impossible expectations — where anything short of a World Series title is viewed as a failure — they maintain similar standards and patience, sticking behind their people when things don’t go as planned.
Giants’ President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey offered a clear version of accountability last July when the organization decided to pick up manager Bob Melvin’s option:
“I still believe in (our) group of players, but it boils down to them needing to play better baseball. If anybody deserves blame from the top, it should be on me. It shouldn’t be on our manager or our coaching staff. I’m the one who sets the roster.”
A few months later, after the season ended, Posey fired Melvin. Explaining the decision to the media, he said:
“When seasons don’t go the way you want, it’s never one person’s fault, it’s never one group’s fault. But when they don’t go the way you want them. You can’t, in my opinion, can’t sit there and say we’re gonna come back and do the same thing for the next year. Having said that, that’s partly why we landed where we landed.”
That’s a stark change in tone.2 The first statement takes responsibility, backs the manager, and reinforces that everyone is in it together. The second one says something altogether different.
And the message is a critical part of tough decisions.
Most people in an organization form their impressions of leadership through public comments. They don’t have personal relationships with or consistent access to senior leaders like the general manager. For every Slack message or video call they see, there are five to ten times as many media appearances that shape their opinions. What’s said publicly becomes a narrative about how decisions are made and what’s valued in that culture.
Even when expected, firing a manager is rarely easy or popular. Making tough choices is part of leadership. But doing so and offering a vague explanation — or worse, no explanation at all — misses an opportunity to build trust and it forces others to fill in the blanks themselves.
One of the common refrains when a manager is fired is that someone had to be held accountable. The turnover and accompanying statements don’t phase us anymore, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that’s what accountability looks like.
Only it’s not. Accountability isn’t about a single decision, or someone falling on the sword when things go wrong. It’s about ownership, understanding, commitment, and, at times, meaningful change.
And just as importantly, it’s about why those choices are made and how they’re explained. Accountable leaders don’t hide their thinking. They trust the people around them to understand their actions — even when they disagree with the decision.3
In addition to quotes about Rob Thomson and Alex Cora, the statements about Ron Washington, Derek Shelton, Rocco Baldelli, Bob Melvin, Brandon Hyde, Dave Martinez (and Mike Rizzo), Bud Black, David Bell read largely the same.
This isn’t meant to call out Posey. As we can see from the footnote above, pretty much any managerial firing would show a similar pattern.
Ironically, fired Phillies manager Rob Thomson opined on accountability when he spoke to the media after his dismissal: “If you’re an accountable person, if you’re a leader, you’re going to stand up in front of people and answer the questions when it’s all over.”