Personal accountability is defined as the willingness to accept consequences that are as a result of your personal choices and actions or behaviour. It basically means accepting the role you played to lead to certain outcomes.
Personal accountability is a very challenging thing to master, especially when our actions or choices result in a negative outcome. However, it helps greatly in improving our relationship with others and improves our problem solving skills.
Below are behaviours you should acquire that show personal responsibility.
Understanding your role in the outcome
We often try to avoid personal accountability by refusing to take responsibility but to build on it, you need understand your role in any given situation.
If you are tasked with something, ensure that you properly understand what you need to do first; before getting down to it. If you are working with others, communicate responsibilities clearly for better problem solving. And if something goes wrong, rather than blame someone else, think of the role you played in the outcome first.
Be quick to apologize
We often have this belief that apologizing makes us appear weak. However, apologizing when you make a mistake shows maturity and a sign of taking responsibility. It is an admission of liability.
An apology allows you to put aside blaming yourself or others and encourages rectifying the situation.
Time management
Another behaviour of having personal accountability is time management. If you are productive in time management, it means that you complete your tasks on time and thus, avoid situations where you make excuses for failing to deliver.
Time management also helps keep away procrastination, which can be an easy way of escaping responsibility or avoid dealing with a situation.
Being open to change
Personal accountability comes with self-awareness, which means that you can take constructive criticism without feeling like it’s personal and change your approach to dealing with things.
While we might want to believe we know everything, the truth is we don’t. Thus, when you want to be personally accountable for your actions, choices and behaviour, you assess each situation critically and change what is needed.
Once you learn personal accountability, know what you are accountable for and to whom you are accountable to.
Check out more articles.
