This story is part of our April 2026 issue. To read the print version, click here.

From time to time, an old phrase captures a modern problem perfectly; “asleep at the switch” is one of them. The expression dates back to the early days of American railroading. A switchman’s job was to pull a lever so trains could move safely from one track to another. If he wasn’t paying attention, the consequences could be catastrophic. Over time, the phrase came to describe something broader: someone responsible for an important decision who failed to act when it mattered most.

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History offers plenty of examples. One could argue that Julius Caesar, George Custer, the captain of the Titanic and the economic advisers to President Herbert Hoover ignored warning signs that, in hindsight, were impossible to miss — respectively, a planned assassination, the Native American troop buildup at Little Big Horn, non-navigable icebergs and an impending Wall Street crash.

But what fascinates me even more is what tends to happen after things go wrong. Accountability often becomes the first casualty. The switchman might once have blamed a faulty signal or a jammed mechanism. Today, the excuse might be a dead cellphone or a crashed computer. Different technology, same instinct: Find something — or someone — else to blame.

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We see that instinct everywhere. It shows up when children skip homework, and parents rush to explain it away rather than address the problem. It shows up when leaders in politics, business and nonprofits distance themselves from problems with phrases like “I inherited this situation” or the familiar “mistakes were made.”

Small problems then grow into much larger ones because no one wants to own them early on.

You don’t have to look far to see how this pattern plays out — including right here in the Capital Region. Challenges that have demanded steady attention — homelessness, infrastructure, public safety, technological change and responsible budgeting — somehow linger year after year. Meanwhile, leaders often move from one position to the next before anyone can really determine whether their ideas actually worked.

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Accountability, of course, starts much closer to home. When children test limits or avoid responsibilities, it’s tempting to smooth things over. But adulthood teaches a different lesson: Mistakes are inevitable. What matters is acknowledging them honestly and deciding what to do next.

Too many times in crises, the emphasis is on “How did this happen?” and “Who’s responsible for it?” instead of “How do we make sure this doesn’t happen again?” In the 1960s and 1970s, the country lingered under the tragic shadow of the undeclared Vietnam War. Everyone wanted to know how we got into this mess. I was pretty young then, and my future husband-to-be was flying helicopter gunships there. Eventually, the war ended, but only after years spent debating responsibility. More recently, we questioned our Afghanistan engagement.

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Those discussions matter. But they can also distract us from the more useful question: What do we learn from our mistakes?

Wars and chaos, divorces and family estrangements, fender-bender car accidents and even silly arguments always seem to be everyone else’s fault. Why don’t we teach accountability more directly? While you can find ethics courses in law, medical and journalism schools, among others, why aren’t there classes in “owning up” to our missteps, misdeeds and plain misunderstandings? Why do so many people enter the professional, political and nonprofit arenas thinking that the worst thing they can possibly do is commit an error? Few people actually receive guidance on something just as important — how to acknowledge errors, repair the damage and move forward. Regrettably, we see countless examples of this every day as we listen to the news.

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Responsibility extends to institutions as well. When donors support nonprofit organizations, they trust boards of directors to safeguard that nonprofit’s mission and its precious resources. What about those who gave money to Capital Public Radio when its former general manager was allegedly pocketing it and living large? Oversight cannot be optional.

The same principle applies to leadership everywhere. Employees watch their leaders closely. When accountability is demanded from staff but avoided at the top, credibility disappears quickly. In my experience, people notice very fast whether leaders hold themselves to the same standards they expect from everyone else.

After almost four decades of running a business, I’ve learned that integrity often reveals itself in small moments. An employee makes a mistake and immediately brings it to my attention, even accepts the blame, then asks what can be done to fix it. In that moment, the solution has already begun — because honesty creates the possibility and probability of improvement and a great lesson learned.

These are the people worth keeping close in business and in life (and dare I say, in political positions) — the ones who stay alert, take responsibility and remain, as the old railroad phrase reminds us, wide awake at the switch.

What do you think?

Winnie Comstock-Carlson
President and Publisher

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