Leadership Success Factor: Responsibility

“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,

Editor in Chief, Simon & Schuster

Responsibility is defined in the dictionary as: ‘the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one’s power, control, or management.’

So many people struggle with the idea of responsibility, many cannot simply say: ‘I apologise’ when they have made a mistake, but would rather blame others, justify and be ‘right’. The need for the ego to be right and make others wrong causes so much pain to both personal and business relationships. Those of higher consciousness have learnt to manage their ego and can apologise as they have the self-esteem to realise it’s ok to make mistakes as we are all human.

Responsibility and freedom. Sigmund Freud said: “Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.” We see ‘Responsibility’ as being accountable for your thoughts, emotions and actions. As soon as any person goes into ‘victim’ mode and starts blaming or feeling sorry for themselves they in turn will lose their psychological freedom. Realising your thoughts create your emotions is key. Response-ability also relates to one’s ability to ‘re-act’ or be ‘pro-active’. This speaks to emotional intelligence (EI). We define ‘Emotional intelligence’ as the ability to identify emotions (sadness, anger, frustration, joy, calm, peace etc), identify the thoughts that create the emotions and then the ability to release the energies to restore balance.

Being able to accept ‘what is’ and face your reality is a key part of taking responsibility. When humans are in lower levels of consciousness they will blame and complain for the way their life is, while those who can take responsibility face their challenges head on and realise that they can overcome and create their life. People who take responsibility have a great ability to take account for their mistakes, forgive themselves and others, learn the lessons, clean up whatever mess was created and move forward.

We start our journey of transformation with responsibility because it is the gateway to freedom and success.

“The price of greatness is responsibility”. Winston Churchill

Questions for reflection:

- What issues in your life are you not accepting or taking responsibility for? What is the cost to you?

- What actions can you take to take back your responsibility or to increase it?