The actions we take can impact the people around us. How important is it to hold ourselves accountable for the consequences of those actions?
What you do matters. It matters for your own life, and can have ripple effects on the people around you. This is true in your personal life, with your family and loved ones. It is also true in your professional life, as your actions can have consequences on your coworkers, your boss, your company, and others.
In a perfect world, we would be rewarded for the positive actions we take, and punished for the negative ones. At work, we might get a raise if we introduce a best-selling new product. Or we might get fired for messing up and doing damage to our coworkers or the company’s brand.
We can call this system of rewards and punishments “accountability”.
However, the world doesn’t always hold people accountable for their behavior and actions. For instance, the punishment and reward system can work in reverse.
Sometimes people are rewarded despite having made questionable decisions. The company does well, and so everyone gets a Christmas bonus, regardless of performance or merit. Or layoffs at a struggling company might be first hired, first fired, ignoring the positive contributions someone has made.
In addition, it is human nature to accept credit for good outcomes, but to minimize blame for bad ones. If good events happen in my private life, no doubt it is because I am smart and made wise decisions. Bad things are someone else’s fault, or beyond my control.
Does this matter? How important is it to hold yourself accountable for your actions? How important is it to hold others accountable for theirs? Do you think about those — yourself and others — differently?
Related questions: What are we responsible for? How do you judge yourself? How are you underappreciated? What are our responsibilities to others?
Accountability is vital for fostering trust and goodwill. It plays a key role in both personal and organizational relationships. While this type of responsibility primarily lies with the individual who has committed to a task or behavior, it is beneficial for all parties involved to take a proactive stance to facilitate accountability as much as possible.
What does this mean? To start, the accountable person should be transparent in their actions, diligent in their efforts to make timely progress, and open about when they need help fulfilling their obligations. Also, it is important those holding someone accountable should check in with that person regularly, show grace when they ask for assistance, and be thorough and truthful if evaluation is necessary for determining when accountability should be assessed.
When all parties act this way, trust and goodwill will flourish as mutual benefits.