This arguably makes the leader into a kind of whipping boy, which, in the historical sense, was a boy who could be punished by a prince’s tutor for the transgressions of the prince who, as royalty, was himself immune to being punished personally.
A third approach would be to understand ultimate responsibility in terms of motivation: when you know that you’re going to be held responsible if things go badly, then presumably you’re going to work hard to make sure that things go well.
If that’s the case, it’s worth spelling out the structural features of leadership that make attribution and acceptance of ultimate responsibility make sense.
We need to look at whether the leader in question actually had (in theory and in practice) the power to hire and fire, the power to shape policy (which is sometimes constrained by legislation, collective agreements, and so on), and the power to shape culture (which often takes a very long time).