Here is an excerpt from an article written by Saj-nicole Joni for the Harvard Business Review blog “The Conversation” series. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, and sign up for a subscription to HBR email alerts, please click here.

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Just for fun, imagine you’re running a gigantic multinational corporation with more than 118,000 employees. You can’t possibly be responsible for every little thing that goes wrong in all your divisions and subsidiaries. So the question is: where exactly is the tipping point at which you must accept fundamental responsibility for problems that occur on your watch?

Or to put it another way: every CEO says that the buck stops with them. But how realistic is this, really, in a huge company? And if it should stop with the CEO, just when should it stop?

For William Weldon, these aren’t just hypothetical questions. Weldon is CEO of Johnson&Johnson (J&J), which firmly established itself as one of the world’s most trusted companies following the famous Tylenol scare in the 1980s. From 1998 to 2005, J&J ranked at the top of Harris Interactive’s National Corporate Reputation Survey, and in 2008 Barron’s named it the world’s most respected company. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the U.S.’s largest public health philanthropy, conducts research that helps millions. And the company has been a blue-chip stock for years. Its well-known credo, stating that “everything we do must be of high quality,” has withstood the test of time.

Until lately, that is. Over the past few years, J&J has increasingly found itself in a world of hurt. Manufacturing problems at three different plants forced the company to recall more than 50 products, including over the counter drugs including Tylenol, Motrin, Rolaids and Benadryl, which led to a Congressional probe. Its artificial hips, called the ASR XL, were voluntarily recalled, but only after they were already implanted in some 93,000 patients worldwide.

According to a recent (and fairly damning) Business Week article, Weldon says that problems at just three of its 120 facilities have “overshadowed everything else.” He wants you to believe that problems in “only 3 out of 120” plants is well, normal, and something that every CEO faces. Indeed, 3 out of 120 is only 2.5%. He insists that no serious injuries have occurred, and that company’s quality control problems are not systematic.

On the other hand, millions of bottles of products have had to be taken off the market — products that all promise the brand of trust — from baby medicine to Rolaids to the flagship product Tylenol. Some of the recalls were done in secret — clearly not in line with J&J’s vaunted credo.

We cannot expect our CEOs to be perfect, and we do expect them to have problems on their watch. I’d like to hear your responses to the following questions:

1. Weldon did take action. He shook up the management of J&J’s consumer arm, replacing former consumer chief Colleen Goggins with a 30-year veteran insider. Does this step convince you that the problems have been adequately addressed?

2. Is his defense credible — that is, do you believe that he didn’t know about the problems? Why or why not?

3. If he really didn’t know, then when does that point to a material weakness in his own performance?

4. When is Weldon himself personally responsible for the failures? How much has to go wrong?

5. What else, if anything, does Weldon or the J&J Board need to do?

Once you’ve answered these questions about Weldon, ask them about your own performance. When are you personally responsible? If you didn’t know something material, why didn’t you? When you take action, is it sufficient?

These questions matter at every level of leadership. Wrestling with them now is part of the work of growing your capabilities so that when you reach the top, people will be able to follow you with confidence.

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To read the complete article, please click here. You can then respond to her questions.

Saj-nicole Joni, chief executive of Cambridge International Group, is a confidential advisor to CEOs and top executives worldwide. The Right Fight, by Saj-nicole Joni and Damon Beyer, (HarperCollins, 2010) is available in book, e-book and audio formats.