Article: Personal Accountability
The success or failure of an organization is based on one key concept: Personal Accountability
There is a societal eagerness to shift the blame on anyone and anything to avoid taking blame for negative outcomes.
“It’s the bankers fault”
“If marketing only gave us what we needed, we could really make sales happen.”
“It’s the teacher’s fault my son failed.”
“It’s my manager’s fault…”
“If only my employees …”
“If only my wife, my husband, my children, my neighbors…”
Like a disease that gets progressively worse, the inability to accept responsibility for one’s actions deteriorates communication, relationships and an organization’s vitality.
Lack of personal accountability indicates an individual is more concerned with outward appearance and image rather than results and success. This individual will seek to blame bad decisions on outside factors, which do not rely solely with them. Achieving goals and success are important to this person, however protecting their self-image more important than correcting the problem.
Individuals with strong personal accountability will not make excuses for bad decisions. They work hard to identify what caused the bad decision and focus on correcting the problem ensures future success.
Think how an internal meeting’s atmosphere would improve if there was a concerted effort to fix mistakes, learn from them and then implement procedures that would prevent the same mistakes from happening again.
Progress will happen when people become focused on fixing problems and less interested in protecting reputations. Think win-win and not lose-win when attempting to gain the endorsement and trust from internal customers and clients.
Developing personal accountability capacity
Step One: Understand the definition
Personal accountability is being responsible for actions and the consequences of those actions. It should be evident to self and others that there is a willingness to “own up” to ones actions. This behavior is exhibited in day-to-day interactions on the job and at home.
Step Two: Perform an evaluation.
Evaluate what the job requires as far as personal accountability is concerned. Grade yourself on how you think you do. It is helpful to have a friend, coach or mentor provide objective feedback to get their view of how you are doing. Understand the gaps.
Step Three: Act on the self-evaluation.
After performing a self-evaluation, you must decide if you want to act on your personal accountability results. The inability to accept personal responsibility for consequences and actions is around us daily. The consequences are there for all to see. Enlist the aid of a coach or mentor and then work to improve this important social skill.