i don’t understand this phrasing and i’ve seen it in all these layoff announcements: if the CEO takes responsibility for the initial failure then why would he not offer his resignation? what responsibility is he actually taking?
They could blame the people who got laid off for not "correctly" implementing the vision. Future employers would potentially not look favorably upon them.
They could blame the market, which just makes the company as a whole look worse as they likely learned nothing if that were the case, and would still potentially reflect poorly upon the people let go.
Instead, the CEO is saying "I made a decision, but it didn't bear out, and for the company to be healthy again we need to make some drastic changes. These people aren't at fault"
Does that mean the CEO needs to resign? Maybe, maybe not. Was the decision obviously bad at the time, or only wrong in hindsight? Would a different CEO be better or worse give the company's current circumstances?
It's vacuous mouth noises to please journalists and twitterati, utterly devoid of meaning or content.