This is why CEOs and other very senior leadership people have no problem accepting “blame.” Because their contracts are set up so they get even richer no matter what they do! If your company does well, the CEO takes credit and becomes even more fabulously wealthy. If your company does poorly, the CEO takes the blame and leaves on a golden parachute, becoming only moderately more wealthy. Either way, they become more wealthy.
If screwing up my job meant getting fired with a $5M golden parachute, I would be more than happy to be assigned individual blame!
CEOs get way f-ing richer when they succeed than they do when they pull the golden parachute cord.
Everyone's time is finite. Would you rather spend a few years to make high five figures slogging through a failure of mid 6s succeeding? It's the same mental calculation but with more 0s in to the left of the decimal.
If screwing up my job meant getting fired with a $5M golden parachute, I would be more than happy to be assigned individual blame!