I was talking with a client and he asked me, “Sam, why is it more difficult to be accountable to my self than to be accountable to others?” It’s a very interesting question because I too find it’s much easier to be accountable to others. We’re worried about what other people will think about us. We’re worried about how we’re going to look if we don’t perform at the level that we said we would perform.
But the truth is, we need to be accountable to our self first before we can be held accountable to others. We need to understand our ideals and our values and then we need to hold our self accountable to those ideals and values. It’s only when we’re accountable to our self and our values first that we can ultimately achieve at our highest level, that we can be accountable to others, and that we can be in a position to hold others accountable to us.
We must also know what our strategic intent is and we must stay true to our strategic intent, our ideals and our values. When we do, we bring more accountability into our life and we grow as an individual and we’re in a position to grow our organization.