Accountability breeds response-ability

How accountable are you?

 1.    "It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts."― Mahatma Gandhi

 2.    "Leaders inspire accountability through their ability to accept responsibility before they place blame."― Courtney Lynch 

3.    Accountability breeds response-ability.   ― Stephen R. Covey 

4.    "When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else."― David Brin 

5.    "When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behaviour or a choice."― Brené Brown 

When we are faced with a challenge or frustration of some kind, our first instinct is usually to protect ourselves and look elsewhere for someone to blame…..“Who dropped the ball?”  

For most of us, this is an automatic defence mechanism, which comes to us so naturally, we rarely stop to think about how we are reacting to a particular situation.

Finger pointing and blame are the ultimate waste of resource as they take a lot of time and energy and accomplish nothing.  

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review stated, ‘one out of every two managers is terrible at accountability’. Frightening thought! One of the things we talk a lot about at Blue Sky is raising accountability in business, by starting at an individual level. We have a great model that brings accountability to life…… 

On the surface, accountability is about owning or taking responsibility for yourself, your actions and your impact. Beneath the surface is a set of behaviours that either enables us to take accountability or to take the role of a victim.  

If you have a situation in your life that you want to change, then the lens that you look through and how you see that situation will massively determine whether you do something about it, or not. The accountability ladder is a model for describing the different stages of understanding and behaviour in being accountable and it’s a tool that we use every day at Blue Sky both with our clients and in our own operation, to help us understand why we may not be getting the results we want out of life. Where you are on the accountability ladder directly affects that lens and your chances of actually making that change.

The Ladder has eight levels of accountability that allows us to step back, evaluate and really look at the choices we make and how we handle different situations. The top four rungs describe accountable behaviours (things that happen because of you) and the bottom four describe victim behaviours (things that happen to you). Below the line is the place where mood hoovers thrive, it is also the place where nothing new happens. If you’re rolling around below the line, blaming others making excuses or just waiting for something to magically become different, then nothing can change and, if that’s what you want and you’re happy there, then that’s OK, there is no judgement in accountability.  

But if you really want something to change then you have to make a choice and the more time you can spend towards the top of the ladder, the more opportunities you can open up for yourself. Holding yourself accountable is the foundation of a successful mindset. So how does it work?  

Victim Behaviours:

• ‘I did not know’: These are the people who are not even aware of the problem or that there may even be a problem.
• Blame: It is always easy to point the finger at others. Overcoming this step requires people to point the finger at themselves and admit they may, in fact, be the problem, not other people or factors.
• Making excuses: making excuses as to why things are not getting done is very easy and a masked form of procrastination. People make excuses like ‘I am too busy’ or ‘I have never done that before’.
• Wait and hope: waiters and hopers are those who do just that. Wait and hope for miracles and successes to happen in their lives without ever lifting a finger and having to actually go out and get it done.  

Accountable Behaviours:

• Acknowledging reality: people who are at this level look at the situation in black and white, realising there are tasks that need to get done and they are responsible for doing their part.
• I own it: once people have acknowledged the reality of the situation, they then decide are they going to fall back down the ladder and make excuses like blame and complain or they take ownership of the problem and move forward to create solutions.
• Find solutions: owning the situation is key and once people own it, the next step is to brainstorm and start thinking of solutions.
• Make it happen: as it says on the tin, this is about making it happen  

Personal Accountability: How to know when you’re “Above the Line”

• You quickly recognise when you are in the victim cycle
• You acknowledge the reality of existing problems and clearly understand the consequences of not resolving them.
• You try to broaden your understanding of a problem you face by seeking a greater understanding of others
• You acknowledge when you make a mistake
• You listen when people offer their perspective and thoughts
• You look at what you are personally doing (or not doing), that is getting in the way of your progress; as opposed to solely looking at how others are preventing your progress
• You test your view of reality with other people when faced with a complex problem
• When explaining your lack of progress, you are quick to acknowledge how you contributed to the lack of results 

Do you recognise any of these behaviours in you? What could you build on to improve further?  

Things you can do right now  

• Acknowledge the reality; print off the last 10 emails you sent, both personal and professional and as you read back through them reflect on where you were on the ladder when you sent them.
• Think about a change you want to make right now; where are you with that change on the ladder? How could you start to move up two or three rungs to start to take some action? 

And some more quotes…….. 

6. "It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."   ― Moliere 

7.    "A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody."― Thomas Paine 

8.    "Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility."--  Sigmund Freud 

9.    "Accountability is the measure of a leaders height."   ― Jeffrey Benjamin 

10. "The reason people blame things on the previous generation is that there's only one other choice."--  Doug Larson 

11. "Take accountability... Blame is the water in which many dreams and relationships drown."― Steve Maraboli 

12. "What you do, tells me everything about you."   ― Jerry Fernandez 

13. "Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."--  Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

14. "The pride of man hopes but to blame God for the evils of the world, and to praise himself for the good."― Criss Jami 

15. "Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses."--  George Washington Carver 

16. "Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."--  General Colin Powell 

17. "The worst thing that can happen to you as a young person, is to refuse to grow up. You refuse to grow up when you believe that someone else must take responsibility for your life and life circumstances."― Saidi Mdala, 

18. "You are the reason of your own good-luck and bad-luck; success and failure; happiness and pain. Your choices are responsible for your present. Don't blame someone else for your sufferings or failures."― Sanjeev Himachali 

19. "The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it."--  Lou Holtz 

20. "Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have."― Pat Summitt 

21. "Wisdom stems from personal accountability. We all make mistakes; own them... learn from them. Don't throw away the lesson by blaming others."― Steve Maraboli 

22. "The price of greatness is responsibility."--  Winston Churchill 

23. "On good teams coaches hold players accountable, on great teams players hold players accountable."  ― Joe Dumars 

24. "You can make any promises as long as you are not going to be there to fulfill them."― Pawan Mishra 

25. "Accountability separates the wishers in life from the action-takers that care enough about their future to account for their daily actions.  " ― John Di Lemme 

26. "Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility . . . . In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility."--  Michael Korda 

27. "We are all accountable for our actions; their affect and influence on our lives and the lives of others. 

28. "Understanding the true meaning of accountability makes us strong and enables us to learn"― Sameh Elsayed 

29. "Restoring responsibility and accountability is essential to the economic and fiscal health of our nation."― Carl Levin 

30. "If you are building a culture where honest expectations are communicated and peer accountability is the norm, then the group will address poor performance and attitudes."― Henry Cloud

31. "Good men are bound by conscience and liberated by accountability."   ― Wes Fessler 

32. "Where there is no accountability, there will also be no responsibility."― Sunday Adelaja 

33. "When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself."   ― Louis Nizer

34. "Some want, to be exempt. They do not want to excel, they do not want to exert. They want to be considered excellent, for desiring to be held exempt, from all accountability."― Justin K. McFarlane Beau 

35. "Anyone can possess, anyone can profess, but it is an altogether different thing to confess."― Shannon L. Alder

36. "He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."  ― Benjamin Franklin 

37. "Intentions do not insulate us from the consequences of our actions."― Jon D Harrison 

38. "The only way we succeed as a group is not simply following directions, but in keeping each other accountable for our actions."― A.J. Darkholme 

39. "Accountability and self-responsibility are critical to our success in personal, professional and public life. However, we often look for those character traits in others, rather than inculcating them in ourselves."― Vishwas Chavan 

40. "You steadily grow into becoming your best as you choose to be accountable and accept responsibility for improvement."― Steve Shallenberger 

41. "Make yourself accountable and your employees will hold themselves to a high standard."― David J. Greer 

42. "Open collaboration encourages greater accountability, which in turn fosters trust."― Ron Garan 

43. "If you can't stand the heat, you'd better get out of the kitchen."   ― Harry S. Truman 

44. "For most people, blaming others is a subconscious mechanism for avoiding accountability. In reality, the only thing in your way is YOU."― Steve Maraboli 

45. "On one side of accountability is courage, on the other is freedom."― Jean Hamilton-Fford 

46. "A duty dodged is like a debt unpaid; it is only deferred, and we must come back and settle the account at last."   ― Joseph Fort Newton 

47. "To be accountable means that we are willing to be responsible to another person for our behavior and it implies a level of submission to another's opinions and viewpoints."― Wayde Goodall 

48. "Never promise more than you can perform."   ― Publilius Syrus 

49. "Ownership: 'A commitment of the head, heart, and hands to fix the problem and never again affix the blame."― John G. Miller