Going Beyond Taking Responsibility (What You Should Do Instead)
I am sorry it is my fault… But what happens next?
You can take responsibility 1 million times, but until you change nothing will change.
A short story…
Earlier this year, I was called upon to occupy a position of leadership that I was not pleased to accept.
The right thing I should have done was to turn down the offer. Because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to deliver as I should because of other commitments I had at the time.
But I was not courageous enough to break the heart of those that chose me. So, I acted nice and accepted it.
I thought that maybe I could find a way to juggle everything together, somehow. But from the start, the signs were evident that I was going to fail, and fail I did.
I was falling short on so many levels. And in one of my attempts to makeup, I took responsibility for my incompetence and apologized.
I uttered the famous line, “I take responsibility for all my actions. I have no excuses; I hope to make it better.”
Taking responsibility was easy but becoming accountable was as hard as a coconut. And that my dear is the issue.
Lesson…
Most times we do not have problems taking responsibility for our flawed actions. We are quick to accept our flaws and apologize. And that is a beautiful thing to do by the way. Except that it is not enough.
Taking responsibility means nothing if you are not going to become accountable.
Becoming accountable means that you not only accept your mistakes and bad decisions, but you commit to seeing that you do not repeat the same mistakes. That is, you take practical steps to actually change.
It is useless to accept responsibility for an action you know would still repeat.
You don’t just want to be responsible, you also want to be accountable.
That means you accept that you will make mistakes, your decisions might go south, and you might fall short in some areas. But ultimately, you will own up to your flaws, look them dead in the eye, and put in the work that you must to change them.
Eventually, I had to relinquish my position to someone better positioned to serve.
That experience turned out to be a teachable one for me and I have learnt and I’m still learning from it.
In all you so be responsible. But beyond that, also is accountable.
