Seek Responsibility and Take Responsibility for Your Actions
Leadership responsibility has two major facets in my view: action and reaction. To take on leadership is to actively accept the responsibility for success and failure. Your subordinates will reflect how you exude responsibility, remember that.
Action
A good leader will take initiative, be resourceful, and take advantage of given opportunities.
Taking the initiative shows you see something needs to be done. Leaders get things done. Initiative does not take advantage of people but wisely uses people to the best of their abilities to get a task done in order to keep the organization headed in the right direction. Initiative is a key characteristic of a leader because a leader doesn't have to told something needs to be done - they do it! Seeking responsibility requires initiative.
Sergeant Alvin York could have stayed in the ditch during World War I and eventually the Germans would have killed all his men. Instead, he flanked the enemy, killed a few stubborn ones, and negotiated the surrender of over a hundred German soldiers. One man changed the outcome of a battle because he took initiative - he accepted responsibility and took action.
Being resourceful while taking initiative is another part of active responsibility. Resources are precious when you are trying to accomplish a task. In battle every resource counts because wasted resources reduce your effectiveness. On the other hand, being able to assess resources around you, enables you to find unused or neglected resources and engage them for your benefit. People are the greatest resource of any organization. Understanding your people, their strengths and weakness and dreams, will help you know who is passionate, what they are passionate about, and most importantly, what to keep them away from. Use your resources wisely.
Active responsibility also requires knowing how to take advantage of circumstances. You can either be a quitter or a fighter. Quitters throw up the white flag at the first sign of failure or of being overrun. Fighters see opportunity in every problem and know which fights to fight and which to leave for another day. Taking advantage of circumstances keeps an organization on track and can at times level the playing field in your industry. Being a competitor in your marketplace you have to know how to find the weaknesses of your competition - don't exploit them - and see how you can make it your strength.
Reaction
Being responsible is not just action; it is also how you react in actions you perform.
Being responsible means accepting responsibility. For example: you accept a leadership position in which your predecessor has not carried out their responsibility in a way they reflects the companies values. Do you accept your new responsibility and look to bring changes to help the company or do you spend all your time blaming the predecessor for the mess?
Another example: You make a choice to take a calculated risk. The risk becomes a miserable failure. Do you spend time evaluating where the failure occurred and what needs to change or end, or do you find all those under you that are irresponsible and blame them for the failure you incurred?
Reaction will reveal your character as a leader. If you cannot accept responsibility for your leadership failure, you cease to lead others and will incur their wrath. You will also find yourself outside the box with other leaders. You will find they have disdain for irresponsible leaders.
Proper reaction includes giving credit where credit is due and allowing others to toot your horn (never go around tauting your successes - it gets boring and repressive).
Your reaction to responsibility builds trust and that is what grows your leadership among others. At the same time you do not have to become a masochist. Be a leader and when failure happens seek people you can trust to give you honest feedback (even from those within your organization). Accept responsibility and take corrective action.
Action
A good leader will take initiative, be resourceful, and take advantage of given opportunities.
Taking the initiative shows you see something needs to be done. Leaders get things done. Initiative does not take advantage of people but wisely uses people to the best of their abilities to get a task done in order to keep the organization headed in the right direction. Initiative is a key characteristic of a leader because a leader doesn't have to told something needs to be done - they do it! Seeking responsibility requires initiative.
Sergeant Alvin York could have stayed in the ditch during World War I and eventually the Germans would have killed all his men. Instead, he flanked the enemy, killed a few stubborn ones, and negotiated the surrender of over a hundred German soldiers. One man changed the outcome of a battle because he took initiative - he accepted responsibility and took action.
Being resourceful while taking initiative is another part of active responsibility. Resources are precious when you are trying to accomplish a task. In battle every resource counts because wasted resources reduce your effectiveness. On the other hand, being able to assess resources around you, enables you to find unused or neglected resources and engage them for your benefit. People are the greatest resource of any organization. Understanding your people, their strengths and weakness and dreams, will help you know who is passionate, what they are passionate about, and most importantly, what to keep them away from. Use your resources wisely.
Active responsibility also requires knowing how to take advantage of circumstances. You can either be a quitter or a fighter. Quitters throw up the white flag at the first sign of failure or of being overrun. Fighters see opportunity in every problem and know which fights to fight and which to leave for another day. Taking advantage of circumstances keeps an organization on track and can at times level the playing field in your industry. Being a competitor in your marketplace you have to know how to find the weaknesses of your competition - don't exploit them - and see how you can make it your strength.
Reaction
Being responsible is not just action; it is also how you react in actions you perform.
If you listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home among the wise.Prov 15:31 (NLT)
Being responsible means accepting responsibility. For example: you accept a leadership position in which your predecessor has not carried out their responsibility in a way they reflects the companies values. Do you accept your new responsibility and look to bring changes to help the company or do you spend all your time blaming the predecessor for the mess?
Another example: You make a choice to take a calculated risk. The risk becomes a miserable failure. Do you spend time evaluating where the failure occurred and what needs to change or end, or do you find all those under you that are irresponsible and blame them for the failure you incurred?
Reaction will reveal your character as a leader. If you cannot accept responsibility for your leadership failure, you cease to lead others and will incur their wrath. You will also find yourself outside the box with other leaders. You will find they have disdain for irresponsible leaders.
Proper reaction includes giving credit where credit is due and allowing others to toot your horn (never go around tauting your successes - it gets boring and repressive).
Your reaction to responsibility builds trust and that is what grows your leadership among others. At the same time you do not have to become a masochist. Be a leader and when failure happens seek people you can trust to give you honest feedback (even from those within your organization). Accept responsibility and take corrective action.
Whoever stubbornly refuses to accept criticism will suddenly be destroyed beyond recovery.Prov 29:1 (NLT)
You can play politics with your leadership but in the end you end up destroying more than you build. Learn to be responsible and learn to take responsibility, and you will find your organization overcoming odds it never was designed to overcome.
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