Part 1 of 2🎙️ The Leader’s Guide to Managing Risk: Why Accountability Without Empathy Will Destroy Your Culture. | K. Scott Griffith

🎙️ The Leader’s Guide to Managing Risk: Why Accountability Without Empathy Will Destroy Your Culture. | K. Scott Griffith

What if the very thing destroying trust in your organization… is how you handle risk?

In a world obsessed with performance, perfection, and accountability, have we lost the courage to ask: What if it's not the people, but the system?

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In this episode of The Dov Baron Show, we sit down with K. Scott Griffith, a pilot, physicist, and the former safety lead at American Airlines, as well as the architect of High-Reliability Organizing, a breakthrough method that helped the FAA and NASA redefine safety and human performance.

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But this is not about airlines. It’s about the critical failure happening inside your company, your culture, and your leadership right now.

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Scott shares how traditional management systems often blame individuals for systemic failures, which in turn sabotages innovation, trust, and long-term performance.

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If you’re a leader navigating high stakes, complex systems, or emotionally charged environments… This conversation will permanently shift the way you think about failure, feedback, and the real definition of leadership.

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In This Episode:

• Why your most significant leadership blind spot might be how you respond to failure

• The difference between a “Just Culture” and a “Blame Culture,” and why most companies get it fatally wrong

• The real reason why innovation dies in most organizations (hint: it’s not a lack of talent)

• How Griffith helped NASA, the FAA, and healthcare leaders apply High-Reliability Organizing to prevent disasters

• How your emotional response as a leader shapes psychological safety across your organization

• What American Airlines taught Scott about systems failure, human behavior, and the illusion of control

• Why most organizations weaponize accountability—and how to reverse the damage

• The invisible cost of fear-based leadership: disengagement, turnover, and hidden sabotage

• How to build a culture where people tell you the truth—especially when it’s inconvenient

• The courageous conversation every leader must have with their team

 

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Power Quote: 
“Accountability without empathy isn’t leadership. It’s control dressed up in a suit.” ~K. Scott Griffith

 

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Guest Bio:
K. Scott Griffith is the founder of SG Collaborative Solutions and the pioneer of High-Reliability Organizing (HRO), a framework adopted by aviation, healthcare, nuclear energy, and other high-stakes industries. He’s advised the FAA, NASA, and Fortune 100 companies on risk management, system design, and building cultures of trust without blame. Author of: The Leader’s Guide to Managing Risk.

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Subscribe, Listen, and Review: This episode will shift your thinking… don’t keep it to yourself. Please share it with a leader who’s ready to lead with courage. Tag @DovBaron and use #TheDovBaronShow.

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