Welcome to another installment in my “Questions of Leadership” series. These questions are for those of you in leadership roles and can be used in many situations. Today let’s talk about accountability:
Where is your hand print on the crime scene?
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting we ask this question in this way, although I admit I have asked it this way just for fun. I have probably put people in therapy with questions like this, but I will save that for another story.
The underlying question is where anyone of us might have our DNA on a particular challenge. We are more than able to point out how we have been victimized, taken advantage of, brutalized, subjugated or injured. We can easily point out how we have suffered at the hands of others, by society, by the environment, by the vary forces of the universe.
For example: As I write this, I see the envelope with my latest retirement account statement sitting unopened on my desk stirring frustration, resentment and anger. I’m angry with my financial advisor for not managing my retirement better and beating the market averages. Frustrated with the entire financial services industry that only cares about reporting the results and making their money while the rest of us schmucks are suffering. I am outraged that our free market system serves only the very wealthy and the rest of us can never get the big breaks. See how easy it is to fall into blaming others?
We don’t ask questions that allow us to look at our accountability because it can be scary. I don’t know about you, but I don’t look forward to someone asking me about my accountability, especially when I just told them how I was the victim. As a matter of fact, any question along these lines should come with a warning label, “The surgeon general has determined that asking this question may result in a punch in the nose”.
One of the reasons we avoid accountability is because it has been wired into us since we were kids. When we got in trouble as kids we learned very quickly that we can avoid punishment if we can blame someone else or direct attention away from ourselves. I remember my daughter as a toddler, when she was doing something wrong, she would get our attention on something else, like we wouldn’t notice what she was doing. For the record, she is a fully functioning, well-adjusted adult now.
Our entire legal system is built around inflicting accountability on others. The standard response to a law suit or criminal case is deny, deny, deny. Since our nation’s capital is full of lawyers, is there any surprise that when a politician is accused of fraud, embezzlement, inappropriate relationships, the standard response is deny, deny, deny.
So why are we surprised that this is what we are teaching our children? Our entire social system seems to be geared on telling people they should blame someone for their ills and troubles. “Been hurt, been injured, taken a fall, call us and we will sue those that harmed you”. Someday I expect to see an ad that says “Call us if you were injured even if it was your fault”.
We call our social programs “entitlements”. Is anyone else distressed by this term? So we wonder why we have a mentality of being entitled to something and blaming others for our lot in life. There needs to be a shift in getting us to at least look inward before we blame.
Next week I will expand on this topic and share multiple examples for ways you can get your employees to look inwards, buck the trends, and be accountable for their role in a problem.
Until next time,
Doug