“Taking responsibility is the key competence in life,” said one of my teachers. Over the past 40 years I have frequently remembered this advice. For example, when interviewing job applicants, recruiting football players or mentoring people in super teams. Here are three ideas for exploring a person’s approach to taking responsibility.

1) You can clarify whether the person takes responsibility.

Imagine you are leading a team and have a talented team member who is not delivering. How to decide whether to put effort into working with him? Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself. On a scale 0—10, to what extent does the person take responsibility? Do they take ownership for their attitude and actions - or do they make excuses and blame outside events? When experiencing a setback, do they work hard to recover - or do they play victim? Do they say: “I can make things happen,” or: “Things happen to me?”

The extent to which the person
takes responsibility is ____ / 10

Let’s imagine you rate the person as 8+/10. Anything less is a danger signal, because you may need to spend masses of time ‘encouraging’ them to take responsibility. That is not to say the person won’t choose to take responsibility in the future - but you must decide whether you want to stay around till then.

2) You can clarify how the person wants to take responsibility in the future.

Let’s assume you want to continue working with the team member. It can then be useful to take the following steps.

a) Clarify their long-term goals.

If appropriate, invite the person to share their long term professional goals. You can work towards helping them to achieve their picture of success.

b) Clarify the contribution they want to make to the team.

Double-check again that they want to continue working in the team. (It is okay if they want to move-on. You can then help them to take that step.) If they do want to stay, however, help them to clarify the passionate contribution they want to make towards achieving the team’s goals.

c) Clarify the responsibility they want to take for achieving the goals - and the help they want from you.

Invite them to make two lists. First, the responsibility they want to take for achieving the goals. Second, the specific help they need to make this happen. You can make clear contracts regarding the respective responsibilities and give them the support required to do the job.

3) You can clarify how the person wants to take responsibility for managing future challenges.

Peak performers do everything possible to shape their futures - but they cannot control everything. So how can you enable a person to improve their chances of success? You can encourage them to:

a) Clarify how they can ‘controlling the controllables’.

Invite them to focus three things. First, the things they can control. Second, the things they can’t control. Third, the things they can do to build on what they can control and manage what they can’t.

b) Clarify how they can do everything possible to increase their chances of success.

Invite them to complete the exercise: “Bearing in mind the goals I want to achieve, the three key things I can do to give myself the greatest chance of success are: 1) To ____ 2) To ____ 3) To ____” They can focus on pursuing these three key strategies.

c) Clarify how they can anticipate and manage potential future difficulties.

Invite the person to do three things. First, to anticipate the potential future difficulties. Second, to describe how they can prevent these difficulties happening. Third, to describe how they can manage such difficulties if they do happen.

Taking responsibility is a key competence in life. Some people seem to do it naturally; some decide to take control of their lives; some avoid responsibility at every opportunity. If you are a leader, you need team members who want to take ownership. You can then provide the support they need to shape their future.