If I had to pin down a singular reason why leadership is almost universally weak across the industry, it would be that everyone prefers to avoid accountability, and no one is willing to bet on their own decision making.

The master algorithm for cultivating strong leadership is just Bayes' rule. If an employee makes good decisions they should have more influence over the organization's resources. If they make bad decisions they should have less influence over the organization's resources. Influence maps to probability.

Most organizations aren't setup to do this well. There is no where for bad leaders to go if they can't also contribute directly, and there is a reluctance to demote people or reduce their influence. A reluctance to demote has to be paired with a reluctance to promote. Consistently making good decisions is likely to be recognized artificially slowly, to prevent wage increases.

I suspect the industry's culture of job-hopping doesn't help accountability either.

Facebook kicked off a bunch of 'metaverse' projects in 2020 (even literally renaming the company) and 5 years later, if their employee tenures average 2.5 years, their workforce will have turned over twice.

Can't expect someone to be "accountable" for promises made by their predecessor's predecessor.

Agree. I have repeatedly said one mangement fundamental is control is commensurate to accountability. Thereafter, what you write deals with increasing control or decreasing depending on outcomes.

I also agree with point about canning or demoting senior staff. My better half had to deal with a complete jerk senior manager. It took an act of God to make the organization hold that clown accountable. In the end his team was downsized, but I'm not sure if he ever lost his title. Why? Senior managers + HR are serious believers in the unitary theory of the executive. As I say it takes an act of God to make them see what they did is not right by definition.