Lasting progress is never achieved by fixing people or reacting to crises; it emerges from designing systems that make failure difficult and learning inevitable. When organizations focus on visible events and targets, they create an illusion of control while deeper structural weaknesses, flawed incentives, and unexamined mental models quietly incubate breakdowns. Accidents unfold slowly through aligned latent failures, ethical drift grows from poorly designed goals, and cultures reveal themselves in how mistakes are treated—through blame or learning. Real leadership shifts from operating within the system to architecting it, redesigning constraints, feedback loops, and assumptions so dignity, safety, and resilience are built in by default. Prevention, grounded in systemic responsibility rather than punishment, is not merely efficient—it is the most compassionate and ethical form of change.