"Accountability" vs. "Culture of Fear"

Couple of years ago, I found "accountability" a very good management concept where

• One should be responsible for what he/she did under his/her scope of duties and
  
• "Root cause" of problems can be uncovered for improvement.
  

However, with the observation of how Hong Kong politicians make use of "accountability" as a "tool" to attack government officials in the recent years (Note), I am still reevaluating the proper use of "accountability" from management perspective.

With improper use of "accountability", adverse effect could be resulted causing damage to an organization. For instance, according to the book "The No Asshole Rule", professor Sutton points out one indirect example of improper management (misuse of accountability) by assholes:

"In a fear-based organization, employees constantly look over their shoulders and constantly try to avoid the finger of blame and humiliation; even when they know how to help the organization, they are often afraid to do it."

The result, of course, is a "lose-lose" situation to both the organization and the employees where people prefer to devote their energy protecting themselves, not helping the organization (improvement by addressing to root cause of problems). In the case of "politics", the situation is, of course, much more complex involving not just output and performance, but also power, benefit, ethics and morality. With the consideration of "politics", the conventional business management concept may not be applied directly.

Note: I didn't say those officials were doing good, but it was pretty sure that those politicians abusively utilize "accountability" for scold most of the time (in order to gain benefit like political status).