What is accountability?

<p>This conversation started off really slowly – in fact I deleted a chunk of it to get to the good stuff.</p> <p> </p> <p>The first simple answer was – willingness to take responsibility.</p> <p> </p> <p>But when I asked the question, “What causes a lack of accountability?” Then we were off to the races.</p> <p> </p> <p>Towards the middle of the conversation, I felt like we had two working definitions that were in direct opposition to each other.</p> <p> </p> <p>One was, “I’m accountable. I have the answers. The buck stops with me.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The other was, “I have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it. I have an accountability partner to help me figure it out and make sure I do what I say I’m going to do.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In the end there were two opposing thoughts – You can ONLY truly be accountable to yourself. And – you can absolutely be accountable to other people.</p> <p> </p> <p>What does accountability mean to you?</p> <p> </p> <p>Is it an internal thing that you don’t want to let yourself down?</p> <p> </p> <p>Can it be an external thing where you are accountable to someone else either because you don’t want to let them down or because they have the authority to create consequences for you not doing something?</p> <p> </p> <p>I’m not sure we really answered the question but we had a lot of fun trying to figure it out.</p> <p> </p> <p>(There was a point where I got tongue-tied. I was going to edit it out but it was funny so, I left it.)</p> <p> </p> <p>Thank you to Brandon Mahoney, Stewart Wiggins and Rick Alcantara for going on the merry-go-round of accountability with me.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Connect with the panelists: Brandon Mahoney: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drstartup/</p> <p>Stewart Wiggins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stewart-wiggins/</p> <p>Rick Alcantara: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickalcantara/  </p> <p>Dr Robyn Odegaard: <a href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynodegaard/'>https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynodegaard/</a></p> <p>Concierge High Performance Psychologist providing lu