[March 4, 2017] I’m posting this leadership blog today because I initially didn’t see anything about The Oscars of value for us here at theLeaderMaker.com. But in the aftermath of one of the biggest flubs in the history of the event and subsequent repercussions, I changed my mind. What is now being called the Oscars Envelopegate,1 offers us up an old lesson in leadership that bears repeating.
For the “unenchanted” among us, this past Sunday evening the much adored Oscar Awards ceremony experienced a major embarrassment during the Best Picture Award. Best Picture is the ultimate award and ensures great prestige for all involved in it. Everything was running smoothly when La La Land was erroneously announced and before the correction took place up came the cast and crew for their acceptance speeches. Moonlight was the actual winner.
Lessons on what to do in these circumstances fill volumes in self-help books. Most of it is reactive and rightfully so; humans make mistakes. Good leadership however is a little more difficult to manage. In any case where a major mistake is made, the senior-most leader (who is by definition responsible) must immediately address the issue, apologize, accept it for what it is, reassure everyone that it won’t happen again, learn from it, and move on. This didn’t happen.
The continuing fallout is testament to this problem. No one got ahead of the issue. No one was leading early when it’s most important. And I’m not even sure who is really in charge. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) runs the Oscar Awards and its president is Cheryl Boone Isaacs. Its corporate management and general policies are overseen by a Board of Governors.2
President Isaacs gave an interview to the Associate Press on Wednesday and issued an email, confirmed Thursday night by an AMPAS spokesman. Her statements were a little late and different formats should have been considered. The email contained, in part, this statement:
“By now, thanks to the non-stop coverage the past few days, we all know that the wrong envelope and the problems that ensued were caused by the failure of PwC’s accountants to follow established protocols and their delay in immediately remedying the situation. Rest assured changes will be implemented to ensure this never happens again.”3
She said in her AP interview that two PwC accountants were responsible and will never work for the Oscars again. No doubt, there were technical errors made by the two accountants who failed to act quickly or properly. They were the “contractors” who got caught up in the moment and didn’t do their job. But who is responsible for their failures? No one apparently. This is why leaders are rightfully given a bad name; especially when junior people are thrown under the bus.
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- The BBC is rather entertaining and so unabashedly British that I find their view of America endearing. So it was that I laughed at the headline to their article on the screw-up at the Oscars when Best Picture was erroneously announced. I used their name for it in my byline but they are the ones who deserve the credit and my appreciation: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39140441
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Awards
- PwC stands for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/03/03/rest-assured-changes-will-be-implemented-to-ensure-this-never-happens-again/98681402/