🎙️ 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.

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

 

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

 

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.

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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