Responsibility isn’t something that’s given to you. It’s something you take. It involves initiative, care, and, much of the time, the motto of asking for forgiveness, not permission.
I’m an advocate for taking responsibility, but, in the past, it has kicked my ass. When something went wrong with a project or a communication stream or a product of my team’s work, I took full responsibility for it. Not blame; responsibility.
I figured out how I could have been better. I voiced to the team or my boss or my friends what I’ll do going forward if a similar situation arises. In other words, I’d make sure that problem never happens again.
My advice to you is to be careful of the responsibility you take. Too much of a good thing (responsibility), really is a bad thing.
In some cases that I’ve acknowledged where I screwed up on a project, people used that as their scapegoat, not accepting any responsibility for themselves and their part in the failure.
While I have the view that when something goes wrong, it’s never one person who is at fault, it’s everyone involved; others don’t necessarily share that view. Nor can you or I force them to. For some, when given the chance to let you or someone else take responsibility for the failure, they let’m.
This is why the team you work with matters so much. The responsibility you want to take needs to match the same responsibility everyone else on the team wants to take.
When you address it upfront. It guarantees the same failure won’t happen again. And that’s what you want to be sure of isn’t it?
Failure is to be expected. The same failure twice or three times or four is just sloppy.
Stay Positive & Take Responsibility, But Choose Wisely
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