On April 17, 1966, the Boston Celtics named their star center, Bill Russell, head coach. He kept playing. He became the first Black head coach in a major US professional sports league.
Red Auerbach had announced that he would step down after the season, and he handed the job to Russell. Russell coached and played for three seasons. The Celtics won the championship in 1968 and again in 1969.
In 1970 Robert K. Greenleaf published an essay called “The Servant as Leader.” It introduced the term servant leadership. He wrote: “The servant-leader is servant first.” He also proposed a test: “Do those served grow as persons?”
The idea came from Greenleaf’s reading of Hermann Hesse’s novel The Journey to the East. In the story, a servant named Leo does the group’s chores. When Leo leaves, the group falls apart. Later the narrator learns that Leo was the leader of the order.
A line attributed to the Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant appears on quotation sites: “If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.”
Quotation sites give no source or date for it.
In Good to Great (2001) Jim Collins describes the best leaders he studied with an image. When things go well, they look out the window to credit others. When things go badly, they look in the mirror to take responsibility.
In 2016 it became public that Wells Fargo employees had opened about 1.5 million unauthorized bank accounts and 565,000 credit cards in customers’ names. The bank paid a $185 million settlement and fired 5,300 employees.
On September 20 Senator Elizabeth Warren confronted CEO John Stumpf at a Senate hearing. “Instead, your definition of ‘accountable’ is to push the blame to your low-level employees.” She called it “gutless leadership.”
In Super Bowl XLIX the Seattle Seahawks trailed New England 28-24 with 26 seconds left, at the New England 1-yard line. Seattle chose to pass. Malcolm Butler intercepted, and the game was effectively over.
The head coach, Pete Carroll, said afterward: “I told those guys, ‘That’s my fault, totally.'” His offensive coordinator, Darrell Bevell, said of the receiver: “He could have done a better job of staying strong on the ball.”
In April 1961 the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba failed. On April 21 John F. Kennedy told reporters: “There’s an old saying that victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan.” He added that he was the responsible officer of the government.
Gallup then found his approval at 83%, up from 78% before the invasion. The saying was not his. A version appears in the 1942 diary of the Italian diplomat Count Galeazzo Ciano, who called it something that happens “as always.”
On June 5, 1944, the day before D-Day, General Dwight Eisenhower wrote a note to release if the landings failed. “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. … If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
He crossed out “This particular operation” and wrote “My decision to attack” in its place. He misdated the note July 5. It is kept at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas.
In November 1986 Ronald Reagan said he had not traded arms for hostages. His approval fell from 67% to 46%, the largest single drop for any president. On March 4, 1987, he spoke from the Oval Office: “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true; but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”
“There are reasons why it happened, but no excuses. It was a mistake. I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my Administration.” He named a new national security adviser, a new chief of staff and a nominee for CIA director. His approval recovered.
Truman kept a sign on his desk in the Oval Office reading exactly that, and used the phrase repeatedly to describe the presidency. The buck is passed, in American usage, from one person to another. The sign announces where the passing ends — at a named individual, in a specific room.