I heard it again…”Do you have a small group to hold you accountable?”
The answer is “no”.
“No,” not because the person was not in a group. “No” because it is not possible for a group to hold you accountable on a personal level.
“Accountability” = account + ability. It is the ability to call for an accounting of some behavior or action.
This means that the behavior or action has to be seen. It must be visual. If we cannot see it, then we cannot monitor it. Moral failures are first failures in thinking. The actions come later. Affairs are mental before they are physical.
1. Accountability is possible in an organization, because there are visual records that form the account.
If we think organizationally, on the other hand, it is both possible and necessary to have others hold you accountable. The accountant keeps track of income and expense, and updates the balance sheet. That holds the leader account-able financially. This “keeping track” or “keeping account” is a reckoning or computation of what has been spent or not. In this instance, someone is holding you to a count.
An organization holds a leader to account in other ways, also. The board peruses the ministry metrics at each meeting. Your supervisor ensures you are tracking with your Action Initiative Plan. These things can and do keep the leader accountable to the organization, fulfilling her/his job responsibilities.
Organizationally, others can keep you accountable.
Personal accountability is all on you.
2. Accountability is not possible personally, until it is too late.
No one can keep you accountable personally. Not your spouse, or your friend or your small group, until it is too late.
Because, no person is with you every hour every day to see where you go or see what you see. Nobody hears every word you speak. And, NO body is inside your head to filter every thought that runs through your mind…or read every thought that hangs around up there. In addition, those who are off-track morally put a lot of effort into keeping it hidden. They are schooling themselves on how to hide.
3. Your accountability is your responsibility.
A small group cannot do it.
Your spouse cannot do it.
Your best friend cannot do it.
Hear it from yet another leader who failed morally:
“I have also been struggling with a serious addiction, which has led to many betrayals, including unfaithfulness to my wife, Heather. Words cannot fully describe how sorry I am for my sin. The gravity of all of this is not lost on me. I have lied to Heather, my counselor, the men in my life, the elders, the staff and the church.”
- wife
- counselor
- men in his life
- elders
- staff
- church
Quite a long list of people he “lied to”.
The only ones in his life but not on the list, it seems, were the participants in the immoral behavior.
You cannot hold accountable that which cannot be counted.
There used to be a set of questions people recommended for a small group setting that was purported to “hold you accountable”. The last question (number six on the list, as I recall) was: “Have you lied to me about any of the other questions?” Now, I ask you, if you lied on a question from 1 to 5, what are the odds that you will tell the truth on question number 6?
Exactly.
They only know what you tell them.
Not to mention some of the biggest (i.e. most public) moral failures happened to people who were in “accountability groups”.
Was the individual person’s moral failure the group’s failure to ask the right questions?
Not at all. It means the person dropped the ball morally.
Then, why do people say they can?
In some ways it removes (at least part of) the responsibility from the individual person. There’s a human tendency we generally share to reduce our own responsibility when others are involved.
You have heard: “If everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible.”
It’s also often true “When somebody else is responsible, I’m not totally responsible.” That is what we say (even if we mean something else) when you have a group or a person who will hold you accountable.
It’s better to accept personal responsibility for your own stuff, under God, directly.
Avoid the tendency of giving that responsibility to others. Recognize you, personally, are responsible. If you need some help ask for it. But, again, it is on you. You alone. The weight, my friend, is on your shoulders.
No one knows what runs through your mind in a given day. You probably have trouble keeping up with it yourself. I do.
Only you really know you.
That is why you are the only one who can “hold you accountable.” Others can help…support…encourage…cajole (even)…but the responsibility is solely yours.
Don’t let the concept of an accountability partner (or partners) keep you from accepting responsibility for yourself. You will be stronger for it.
In the comments, please let me know strategies you use personally to keep yourself accountable.
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