Accountability: If It Is To Be, It’s Up To Me

Excellent post Lolly.

It is surprising to continue to encounter working adults who do not understand that accountability is intrinsically connected to their integrity. If I cannot count on you in small and insignificant matters, then it is unlikely that I will reach out to for important matters or even promising opportunities.

If people do not feel they can count on their leader to step up when things go awry, then this is no leader, just a temporary inconvenience at best, and at worst, a roadblock to getting the real work of your organization done.

Accountability is about “making a promise and keeping a promise”.

I love your saying: “If it is to be, it’s up to me”. That sums up the essential part of being accountable- if we don’t step up and take the right actions, things might never get done or change. Leadership is about doing the right thing and modeling ways for others to follow.

Accountability is also about helping others be more accountable. It is about offering our help so those we connect with so they can be more responsible and meet their commitments.

Thanks Lolly for sharing great insights on such an important human topic.

Terri

Lolly,

Accountability empowers trust, especially when leaders own up to their mistakes and successes, learn from them, and improve the way they lead forward. Accountability is an enabler. Rather than hiding from it, everyone needs to embrace accountability more. In the learning, we become better.

Great points. Thank you!

Jon

Lolly, wonderful subject and so important to being centered and leading from within. Without accountability we will be lost in a forest of desire, greed, fear and anger.

Accountability asks the hard questions and offers the sometimes hard answers. We that fail are we that grow as we are freed by our accountability.

As you say in your book, “it’s easy to let negative thoughts spiral out of control” but when you have accountability at your side it will bring you back to see that there is hope, learning and heart within this place called accountability.

Accountability is grown from within, it is at the very core of who we are, but it is not always easy to find. Accountability takes courage, it takes faith and belief in that this moment is the one that counts. The here and now is where accountability lives, it is where our heart is strongest and our spirit grows.

Accountability is at the very foundation of truth, it is what great leadership is grown upon and where humanity can prosper.

Beautiful and powerful post as usual. See you tonight at on #leadfromwithin chat.
Your friend, Simon

I so agree Lolly! In every situation there is a right thing to do, being accountable means doing things the right way!

– David @P2PEngagement

Lolly: It refreshing to read a positive perspective on accountability, a word layered with several millennia of labour relations baggage. From the brick counting overseers of the Pharaohs, to the clock-punching of the Industrial Revolution (literally counting labour minutes) to our current performance review metrics, accountability has come to mean to be measured against an outside scale by a third party in a position of superior power.

Thank you Lolly for uplifting the concept of accountability from metrics to ownership, from third party review to first party commitment, and from the tick-tock of an outside scale, to the more gentle beats within.

Many many best wishes! Panteli

Lolly –
I can always count on you to proceed from the core of being outward – that is the single aspect of your communications that I find most magnetizing – When I first encounted LeadFromWithin it was as though a refreshing breeze had suddenly been felt in an otherwise stale landscape – the insistence on going within, the gentility of the movement of the heart leading the mind, all these things have a poetic aspect which are aesthetically pleasing, as well as resonant of a deep metaphysical foundation. It is these things that most matter to me, and I thank you for your dedication to what it is you achieve here. The presence of philosophical thinking in the midst of practical issues of everyday management, business, leadership, it is quite simply astonishing what you manage to balance… Having said that, let me just quote from this post: ” It’s not so much a way of thinking as a way of being, and it starts from within.”
That seems, somehow, to say it all…if not to spell it all out in detail, at the least and most, to go, as you have a way of doing, to the very heart of the matter.
Many thanks.
Wayne

Loved this post! People need to take responsibility for their actions and stop blaming others.

I get so tired of people complaining and pointing the finger…I loved this sentence: “I am accountable means you are able to count on me: if it is to be, it’s up to me.”

Great job, my dear!

Love this simplicity of this post. In our book “Winning With Accountability, The Secret Language of High Performing Organizations”, we define accountability as “clear commitments which in the eyes of others, have been kept”.

Lolly –

This is what my dad told me when I was young and irresponsible. I have always remembered it and refer to it frequently.

“You are able to count on me”. I like it! My cleaning business has a motto: Reliable and Trustworthy but I also have to be sure I use that motto in my personal life. Excellent points Lolly.

As a leader, reminders like this are important. We cannot expect from the team that which we will not deliver as leaders.

I agree with every word you wrote – great post!

“Accountability: If It Is To Be, It’s Up To Me”, Ooh what an interesting and provocative article. So, what is accountability stand for? Is this “HAVE TO NICE” or “NICE TO HAVE” ?

Cheers.

I never thought of how accountability defines a person so much. Most of us forget how powerful this word actually is.

Great post Lolly!

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Lolly, for leaders, accountability takes on extra meaning. True leaders hold themselves accountable not just for their own actions but for those who report to them. The higher your position the more difficult this is. You’ll be responsible for the actions of a wide range of people and you cannot know what they are all doing. My take is that you deal with it not by micro-management but by putting in place the structures and culture that encourage individual responsibility.

Lolly, although I agree in principle with your perspective on accountability, putting all the responsibility on the individual fails to take into account the role of the leader in managing accountability and creating a culture of accountability.

As several people observed in their reply, accountability may be intrinsic but many people find it difficult to take responsibility for their actions and the consequences of these actions. The leader plays a critical role in setting people up for success so people are able to meet commitments and keep promises in the first place (i.e., clarify expectations, provide clear and realistic deadlines, and set up periodic check in to monitor progress and make “course corrections” when necessary) and to use three coaching questions when people miss a commitment to enable and encourage them to take accountability. These questions – what can you do right now to get things back on track, what will you do to keep this from happening again, and how did you contribute to the problem – turn the conversation from blaming to problem solving.

Dear Lolly,

“if it is to be, it’s up to me” is really brilliant! i love your saying.

About “Choices + Behaviors + Actions = Accountability”, can you elaborate more? What’s the difference between Behaviors and Actions?

Is there any book that you wrote about accountability in performance management? I would love to read it.

Cheers from Indonesia 🙂

Great post! I hold myself responsible and others able…

Thanks, Lolly, love the positive perspective. I would take it even one step further to say that for the most talented top performers, accountability is a reward. Most leaders I know thrive on being given full ownership for decisions, work, anything that is meaningful to them. I have watched people who leverage this sort of accountability find success beyond even great expectations!

At this moment I am going to do my breakfast, afterward having my
breakfast coming again to read more news.

Lolly,

I agree with your post. It is like a breath of fresh air to hear someone say ” I own that”.
It is so much more rewarding to invest in someone who says ‘That was my fault” than it is to listen to excuses and how they are a victim of someone else’s choices.

Lolly,

“If it is to be, it is up to me.” My father handed this saying to me on a strip of paper when I was in my early twenties and floundering a bit. He passed away not long after. This has been my mantra and I try to live it every day.

I too am astounded when I encounter adults – especially successful ones – who throw out what end up being a bunch of tiny broken promises as if they’d said nothing at all. People do remember those things, and to assume a successful adult in a position of authority hasn’t learned that basic knowledge already would be faulty. However, they still manage to move forward and upward trailing their little pebbles of unfulfilled promises behind them for all the world to see.

I first heard the phrase “if it’s to be it’s up to me at a motivational sales meeting from Cecil Royal, the one time President of Kay Jewelers. He made Kay what it is today, and made many of us successful and wealthy men and women!! all proud of him and proud of our accomplishments.!
Accountability is everything in life and the key to true happiness.
Thank you for this opportunity to share!!

Wonderful advice.

Enlightening and poetic words

Some organizations struggle to understand true meaning of being accountable. People hide behind bureaucratic bushes to save their backsides when things go wrong.

Would you suggest any book to read on this subject?