Accountability & Responsibility

I had a powerful conversation this week with some leaders around the ideas of Accountability & Responsibility. 

In our conversation we discussed that Accountability is an external factor that comes to us from the outside - some external entity (friend, supervisor, boss, board, etc.) attempts to hold us accountable to a set of expectations that have been given to us. Those expectations could be in the form of a job description or a series of tasks we've been asked to complete. Maybe they are even actions we want to accomplish personally, but we've asked someone to hold us Accountable to completing them ("Ask me next week if I've finished my exercise routine this week").

Our conversation also acknowledged that Responsibility is something that happens internally and can only be carried by the individual themselves.  In other words, someone may be trying to hold me Accountable to performing my job description but that only works if I am willing to take personal responsibility for meeting those expectations. If I am unwilling to carry the personal Responsibility from an internal perspective and I try and pass of the blame for why something isn't getting done to someone/something else, then the Accountability won't really work. 

Using our exercise routine illustration as an example, if my friend asks me next week if I got my routine done this week and all of my answers involve some reason why I couldn't that blames something else (I couldn't get to the gym because I had a flat tire, or it was just too hot to get that sweaty), then I'm not taking personal Responsibility for my own choices and their Accountability isn't actually effective.

As you think about these two issues of Accountability & Responsibility and the way they interact with each other, what kind of circumstances come to your mind? Is there a situation in which you are the one who is trying to engage Accountability with someone else and they can't seem to take Responsibility for their actions? How will you try and lean into that conversation in a way that attempts to focus on their Responsibility? Or maybe there is something you are being held Accountable to, but you are pushing the blame to other people or areas rather than taking Responsibility for your own actions? How could you shift your perspective to start taking personal Responsibility for your part in the situation?

Here's to allowing Accountability & Responsibility to work together as partners in our lives this week!

Be Well,

Stephen

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