Personal accountability in leadership is not about blame.
It’s about ownership.
Most leaders say they value accountability.
What they often mean is consequences.
That’s why teams hide problems. That’s why leaders over-explain losses. That’s why projects complete tasks but miss results.
Real accountability isn’t punishment. It’s ownership of outcomes and a bias toward improving the next result.
One of the clearest lessons on this comes directly from my book, You Don’t Know Sh*t About Leadership: And Neither Do I.
Let me give you one of those stories.
A STORY DIRECTLY FROM YOU DON’T KNOW SH*T ABOUT LEADERSHIP
Early in my career, I couldn’t seem to get out of my own way.
As a junior officer, I rotated through a string of screw-ups.
Nothing catastrophic. Nothing career-ending. Just enough poor judgment to become… memorable.
At one point, I likely held the unofficial record for most extra duties assigned to a subaltern at 1 Service Battalion in Edmonton.
It got so bad my extra duties had extra duties.
A senior officer once suggested harsher sanctions because the current ones clearly weren’t working.
I laughed.
They weren’t joking.
Here’s the part I unpack in the book.
Every single time, I owned it.
No excuses. No “technically.” No blaming the system, the tempo, or the ambiguity.
Just: “Yes. I screwed that up. I’ll take the hit.”
That wasn’t maturity.
It was survival.
I had two choices:
- Become the young officer who always had an explanation.
- Become the one who absorbed impact and adjusted.
Over time, something shifted.
The punishments didn’t disappear overnight. But the tone changed. The trust started to build.
One day, after a particularly rough regimental function, I walked into the Adjutant’s office expecting the next round of consequences.
She looked at me and said:
“You’re not on my list.”
That moment didn’t happen because I became perfect.
It happened because I became accountable.
And here’s the core lesson from the book:
Authority is not what teaches accountability. Accountability is what earns authority.
WHAT PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN LEADERSHIP REALLY MEANS
Personal accountability in leadership means:
- Owning outcomes, not just tasks
- Taking responsibility without deflecting
- Adjusting behavior before blaming circumstances
- Protecting standards instead of protecting ego
It is not:
- Public self-punishment
- Emotional drama
- Blame redistribution
- Excuse refinement
People forgive mistakes.
They do not forgive leaders who dodge them.
THE 3 DOMAINS OF PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Accountability must scale across all three domains of leadership:
- Lead Yourself
- Lead Your Team
- Lead Your Organization
If it only exists in one domain, it collapses under pressure.
LEAD YOURSELF: OWN THE RESULT
When something misses, most leaders instinctively explain.
Time. Resources. Head office. Dependencies.
Stop.
Instead, ask:
- What part of this is mine?
- What did I miss?
- What standard did I allow to slide?
- What will I change next time?
Assume ownership first.
Not because everything is your fault.
But because asking that question kills the blame cycle and accelerates growth.
Spend one minute on what went wrong. Spend the rest on what you’ll change next time.
Discipline beats motivation every time.
LEAD YOUR TEAM: MAKE OWNERSHIP VISIBLE
Most teams confuse three words:
- Accountability = owns the result and the learning loop
- Responsibility = owns the tasks
- Ownership = proactively aligns effort toward the outcome
If you don’t define these clearly, you’ll get task completion without result ownership.
When something misses, don’t interrogate.
Coach.
Ask:
- What outcome were we aiming for?
- What happened?
- What part do you own?
- What changes next time?
- What support do you need?
- If this repeats, what structural change happens?
Clear. Fair. Consistent.
That’s leadership.
LEAD YOUR ORGANIZATION: MODEL IT PUBLICLY
At scale, accountability becomes culture.
If you expect accountability from your organization, you must model it twice as visibly as you demand it.
That means:
- Be explicit about success metrics
- Stop moving goalposts after results
- Admit misses publicly
- Invite constructive challenge
- Create cadence over drama
Culture is built through repetition, not speeches.
Accountability compounds.
COMMON ACCOUNTABILITY FAILURES
Here’s where leaders quietly fail:
- Confusing accountability with punishment
- Explaining more than adjusting
- Moving standards after the fact
- Protecting ego over performance
- Demanding ownership without modeling it
None of this is malicious.
It’s human.
But authority is not automatic.
It is earned.
FINAL WORD
That junior officer stacking extra duties?
He wasn’t building resilience.
He was building the one leadership muscle that compounds over time.
Accountability.
Personal accountability in leadership is uncomfortable.
It exposes ego. It invites scrutiny. It removes excuses.
But it builds trust faster than charisma ever will.
If you want the full, unfiltered, uncomfortable stories behind lessons like this, they’re laid out plainly in You Don’t Know Sh*t About Leadership: And Neither Do I.
Because leadership isn’t polished.
It’s earned.
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