If junior managers make mistakes, why does the press and much of the public think that the head of the organisation should take the blame?

The resignation of Paul Gray from his role as chairman of HM Revenue & Customs in November made me think about the extent of managerial responsibility for the failure of subordinates. Should senior executives be held responsible for all errors of judgement, bad decisions and mistakes involving their employees? Some will say that there has to be a systemic failure for senior heads to roll, others say that top people should leave as a sign of ultimate responsibility.

It seems obvious to me that where there are repeated strategic failures in an organisation, as we have seen in certain government departments and in certain companies in the financial sector, ultimate responsibility lies with the top team. But when the failure involves people further down the food chain, the argument for senior resignations is substantially greyer. It may be the case that if there are repeated failures downstream in the organisation, the line manager should be held responsible—but not necessarily those five levels above.

I have a real problem with the mentality of the press and public that demands that senior civil servants and business leaders should walk the plank for the mistakes of junior staff or managers. We are repeatedly told by human resource management academics and gurus that it is important for managers to delegate, to empower their employees and to get them more involved in the decision-making process.

This is particularly the case in the public sector, where there have been numerous criticisms of bureaucratic and hierarchical structures that tend to discourage innovation, resolute decision-making and calculated risk-taking. We talk wistfully about transformational and visionary leadership, creating work environments where we engage employees by giving them more responsibility. But in any culture like this, people will make mistakes or take the wrong decision. In order for these models to succeed, people must be given the opportunity to learn from these errors of judgement and develop.

As Sir James Goldsmith once suggested, "The ultimate risk is not taking a risk." Or as Henry Ford would have it, "Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently."

Obviously, if the learning does not take place and there are serial failures, action has to be taken. But if we stifle engagement and devolved decision-making, organisations in all sectors will retrench to a benevolent transactional leadership style at best, or an unresponsive pyramid structure at worst.

It may make us feel better when someone does the "honourable thing" and publicly resigns, but to me it smacks of the contemporary equivalent of public hangings in medieval times. A resignation may touch our primitive feelings of retribution and self-righteousness. But if we think it will get rid of the problem, we are mistaken. We only have to remember the number of social-work failures we have seen with at-risk children. After each sacking, the promise that "this won't happen again" proved false.

Or think about the number of unethical or misguided business practices in the US—as seen at Enron, for example—and the insistence that this won't happen again. And yet, as the subprime debacle shows, there is always another scandal round the corner.

I have no problem understanding the importance of identifying and dealing with persistent and systemic failures or underperformance, but I do have a problem with the visceral baying for the blood of senior people who are doing their strategic best, and who could not possibly be responsible for every action of every employee.

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Certainly, let's hold individuals and line managers responsible for repeated failures, but have some compassion for those higher up the hierarchy, who don't always deserve a hanging.

Cary L Cooper CBE is professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University Management School, director of consultancy Robertson Cooper and co-author of the book Surviving the Workplace.