Leadership is About Accepting Responsibility

Leadership is about accepting responsibility.

Leaders are responsible for keeping core values and vision in mind, and translating them into specific steps forward. It is as true for people who are leading themselves as it is for people who are leading organizations.

When I live in ways that are not consistent with my own core values and vision for myself, I am responsible for finding new ways to act in which they fit together. When the values and vision of my team or my organization are not clear, I am responsible for clarifying them and finding ways to put them into practice.

It can be very significantly helpful for a leader to take responsibility.

Leaders also accept responsibility for themselves, for their own health and well-being. Leadership is not about living life on the edge, surviving on adrenaline and nervous energy. Healthy leadership finds the balance that includes contemplation and action. Healthy leadership recognizes that, as amazing as we are, we all have limits. Exceeding those limits incurs a cost, and we can pay now or we can pay later.

Healthy leadership encompasses rest and hard work, day-to-day results and long-range thinking.It encompasses physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health. Healthy leadership includes good planning and spontaneity. Healthy leadership recognizes the tensions and balance in which we strive to do our best and finds ways to help people navigate them.

Healthy leaders learn the lessons of the past and anticipate the future by finding balance in the present.

Leaders accept responsibility for the results of their own decisions and actions. They accept responsibility for the decisions and actions of their teams. Part of accepting responsibility is not blaming other people.

How will you accept responsibility for yourself today?

[Image by controltheweb]