Qualities: RESPONSIBILITY

Everyone has responsibilities: to themselves, to many others, to their organizations, employers, religions, nations and ideals. Mastering the control of these diverse and important duties lies at the heart of character and success. Fail at this and you fail at everything. Develop a bad habit in one, and it spreads like cancer to all the others. You must sit down and spend a lot of time with yourself to determine what these responsibilities are, why they are important, how you are going to meet them and what will happen if you do not.

In dreams begins responsibility.
––W.B. Yeats, Responsibilities, 1914

To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
––Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

At moments when our attention is painfully acute, we notice peripheral things…as if to reaffirm to ourselves our basic irresponsibility.
––E.L. Doctorow, The Waterworks, 1994

Leadership is heavily involved with responsibility, not only in one’s own performance but in motivating people to have a passion for the mission and the successful result. Everything is built around this, like a car around its engine.
––John Roberts


A son goes to his parent, complaining about an assortment of problems in his work and personal life. He has debts and difficulties, and seeks help. The parent does not give advice, comfort or encouragement, but simply says: “What are you going to do about it.?”

This makes a great point about individual and self-responsibility; and it would be more meaningful in a boss-employee relationship where they are somewhat new to each other. The parent above would be expected to help the child learn to deal with life, but also start teaching responsibility and accountability well before the son was first learning words in the English language. Responsibility training begins with the very first requirements of the child to do what is being taught, and continue it throughout life. It is often very difficult, sometimes impossible, but this is usually the foundation of future success. Some children, without present or responsible parents, must develop this outside the home. Even with strong parents, responsibility is further developed in school, work and other places. Most of all, it is refined and a commitment is made in the mind of the individual, the sooner the better.