Category Archives: personal growth

Accountability

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What does accountability mean to you? How do you hold it, for yourself and others?

OWN. YOUR. SHIT. No more, no less. The more I think of it, the more I also include fairness and nonjudgment in this concept. At its core, accountability is objective, dispassionate. Ironic, then, that its consistent practice plays a central role in building and maintaining trust, that profound, subjective emotion that can move mountains when strong, and yet can be destroyed in a single breath.

We are almost halfway through the month, friends! Listing my own life practices every day feels like a whole lot of repetitive navel gazing–does it resonate at all? Or are you getting supremely bored? I’m loving it personally, as new insights emerge almost as soon as I sit down each evening, and I see so many nascent and intertwined ideas to develop and expand in the book. Do the societal assessments and admonishments feel pedantic? Redundant and preachy? Oh well, I’m working stuff out here–thanks for joining the ride, and feel free to get off and get back on later, it won’t be like this forever! Okay onward:

How do I already do accountability well?
–I take responsibility. After an initial WTF, ‘you suck’ moment in interpersonal conflict, I am quick to self-assess, ask myself the asshole question, apologize if needed, and make repairs. For operational snags at work I trouble shoot with the team and our collaborative root cause analyses are efficient and effective.
–I invite others to own their stuff, gently. Holding someone accountable is not the same as blaming, shaming, or guilt tripping. The objective is not to make someone ‘feel bad’, but rather to acknowledge and address mistakes and course correct going forward.
–I’m able to separate facts from interpretation, most of the time. Even in the most emotionally charged situations, I’m able to reason through and eventually get to reconciliation.

How could I do better?
–It’s hard to put my finger on it…sometimes I’m in such a rush to take responsibility that I get anxious, almost like it’s a race to blame myself before others can do it–is it virtue signaling? I really do believe, in my thinking brain, what I wrote above. True accountability is not about blame. But my feeling brain may still harbor some false unworthiness that I need to work out?
–I think I can do better at upholding accountability around me. It can be a delicate balance of relationship, task, emotional regulation, and other factors… Sometimes it’s not appropriate to do it in real time, rather people (I) need to cool down, find the loving posture, attitude, and words. This risks missing the opportunity. So I can balance commitment with timing?

How does society do accountability well?

Wheels of Justice. They turn, at least sometimes, if slowly, imperfectly, and incompletely. There are tenacious and resilient people all around working to make visible and accountable that which others would sweep under any rug. Their relentless persistence and infinite mindset truly boggle me, and I bow in admiration.

How could we do better?

Transparency. Political campaign funding. Corporate finance and taxes. Pharmaceutical research. Medical billing. Legal loopholes. We can’t hold anyone accountable if we don’t know who’s doing what. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as they say–it’s at least a partial truth.

Cull the bureaucracy, grow the manpower. So many systems remind me of the Weasleys’ Burrow, a house built of lopsided additions, ricketty stairs, and hoarded artifacts from divergent historical worlds. FDA drug approval and post market safety monitoring, civil and criminal litigation, employee hiring, promotion, and retention–so much red tape and not enough people who understand and can navigate it–people who do good go overworked and unrecognized and those who do harm fly blithely under the radar, all for far longer than serves us. Like individual people, our organizations and institutions need agility, responsiveness, and adaptiveness to operate optimally in the accelerating complexity of our world. Easier said than done, I know.

What else? How does accountability show up effectively in your life? Where do you really need more? I will revisit this; stay tuned.

Integrity

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Note:
For those of you just joining, I’m doing NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month, a challenge to publish 30 blog posts in 30 days. This is my 9th year of participation, and the theme is “What’s already good, and what could be better?” I answer these questions for myself personally and as I see society as a whole, for one topic each day of November.

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I love how integrity has these two definitions. I think of a person’s integrity more as the second, as one’s character being unassailably indivisible. It means we show up our whole, honest selves everywhere and with everybody, ourselves included.

There is an identity exercise wherein the self is drawn as a flower, and aspects of identity as petals. The flower is modified by reorienting petals depending on the context in which a person finds themselves–most relevant identity markers in front, most protective around the edges–however the person thinks of themselves as that flower in any given environment. I think this is a fantastic analogy for integrity, because it acknowledges that maintaining wholeness does not necessarily require all parts to be equally visible, vulnerable, dominant, or accessible at the same time. I suspect that for many of us, certain petals are kept out, big, and vibrant, with others more tender and close to the center. Roses have guard petals, tough outer layers that protect the inner petals as the whole bloom opens. Many florists remove the guards for aesthetics, but some recommend retaining them, honoring nature’s form and function. Myriad potential comparisons to the human identity flower here tickle my metaphor-loving brain. What would your flower look like? How does it feel?

How do I do integrity well already?
–How does one answer this question without sounding self-righteous and arrogant? I keep thinking I should ask others, “(How) Does Cathy walk her talk?” That is the true test, because self-delusion is real and too often invisible. Walking the talk is how I define integrity, and it is a high value of mine. I think it shows when as a leader, I don’t ask the team to do anything I would not do myself, and I often do whatever I’m asking right alongside everybody.
–I check in often with those who know and observe me. I seek honest feedback and do my best to receive it graciously, so people feel safe to give it.
–I live by a handful of words and ruminate on them daily: present, open, grounded, kind, loving, smart, curious, generous, fun. If you know me and would describe me this way, then I know I’m living into my integrity.

How can I do it better?
–Could I be louder about amplifying my values? Bolder? More assertive and insistent about enrolling others in advancing my just causes? Somehow that feels like showing off, attention seeking, which is not how I think of integrity…
–When I enter situations of ambivalence and conflict, for instance when honesty may rupture relationship, or showing up loving tempts me to withhold honesty, I can slow down and consider, prioritize my values in context, assess risk and harm of each potential action. I think I do this already… At least I practice awareness and acceptance of that discomfort rather than denying or dismissing. I slow down and try not do speak or do irretrievable things impulsively. I can keep practicing this and keep checking in with those in the mud with me.
–I could be clearer and more explicit in times of ambiguity and conflict about which core values I prioritize, what I’m willing to sacrifice, why, and how that informs my decisions and actions. This is transparency and fair process, which are important to me.

What’s already good about our integrity as a society?

National identity and pride. Freedom. Independence. Innovation. Ingenuity. We Americans identify with these values, and despite our many and significant contradictions, I think we exhibit them clearly in many contexts. I hear people from other countries describe how American culture feels liberated/liberating in many ways (though constricting in others). Those contradictions, though, yikes.

In the small ways. I see people trying evey day to live up to/into their ideals. I am very slow these days to call someone out for hypocrisy–I try to imagine their identity flower and assess which petals they’re showing me, and which I think they have tucked away for now. Those ambivalent and conflicting situations happen more often than we may realize, and we literally make tens of thousands of choices each day. Much of our integrity, then, is maybe autopilot? Ooo, fascinating.

How could we do better?

Honesty. It’s okay to be in it for the money, even if your core value is helping people. Just be clear about which of these takes priority, especially when they come into conflict. Make a plan to reorient actions to align as closely as possible as soon as possible, to true core values in the future. Or admit outright that your core values have simply changed. Honesty and integrity go hand in hand in my mind.

Self-compassion. Sometimes it will look on the outside that we have really thrown our values away. For leaders especially, not all aspects of every decision can be disclosed at large. Competing interests and goals scramble our delusions of idealistic, binary, black and white, right and wrong, yes BUT. If we’re really honest, and give ourselves some grace for the hard places we live and work, I think we can find our way more easily to the right, if uncomfortable, next steps.

Psychological Safety. After we have assessed our own morals honestly, drawn our contextual flower as accurately as we can, talked ourselves off the ledge of (or put on some armor to protect against) potential public shaming, and taken some firm, grounded steps forward in our own integrity (tenuous as it may sometimes feel), then we can start to extend these graces to others. Psychological safety in groups spreads more efficiently and effectively if initiated by designated leaders; and any of us can also lead by this example.

It strikes me again now that I did not choose these 30 topics intending for them to overlap so much. Do I just have a dearth of new ideas to express? Or do these concepts/practices intersect so tightly that we simply cannot consider any independently of the others? I think of the human body–we study and practice medicine in quasi-silos: cardiology, pulmonology, infectious disease, endocrinology, orthopaedics, psychiatry, neurology, etc. And yet we all know that none of these systems operates normally with all of the others. I wonder what would occupy each segment of a Venn diagram of any/all of my 30 topics this year? Ooo, that could be fun experiment.

OK on to the next, my friends. It’s late and I’m running out of gas. Accountability tomorrow. Oh yeah, that’s gonna be a good one. 😉

Forgiveness

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ACK. I did not think too hard choosing these 30 topics. My mindset was lighthearted and experimental. Maybe my subconscious got a foot in the door, though, as I don’t usually think much about forgiveness, and yet here it appears, on the top half of the list. Huh.

What does this topic bring up for you? My reaction depends on my mood. When I’m feeling good about myself, all equanimatous-like, forgiveness lands lightly, naturally. When I’m feeling inadequate it falls heavy, exacerbating unworthiness and maybe a little anxiety? How fascinating. I’m here for it, though, however it shows up.

How do I do forgiveness well already?
–I think I’m overall a pretty forgiving person. I try to understand others’ perspectives and motivations, and that empathy helps me resist and release grudges.
–I can forgive even after I’ve held a grudge for a while. Just today, on the floor at the gym, thinking about how I could do polarity management better, the biggest duh-HA epiphany in a while hit me smack in the face. And now I feel real forgiveness coming on in a longstanding conflict. Wow.
–I apologize readily, sincerely, clearly, and appropriately; I seek forgiveness when I have wronged someone. It’s not always freely granted, which I do not resent. I know what that resistance feels like, after all. I can find other ways to repair a relationship rupture, and I can be patient.

How could I do forgiveness better?
–Even when my thinking brain knows it’s not all my fault, sometimes my feeling brain continues to self-flagellate. I suffer from this, no doubt, and I also think it’s not good for my relationships, but that impact is subtle and nebulous. This is where my self-compassion skills could be honed a bit more, yes.
–Where else am I withholding forgiveness? What skills do I need to call forth to address this? I’m thinking more of groups now than individuals, the automatic and default assumptions I make about agents of culture, leaders, out groups. How fascinating, the recurring themes this month. Mindfulness, Honesty, Relationships–everything connects to everything else.
–Could I possibly encourage and facilitate forgiveness around me, between people I know in conflict with one another? That feels prickly, like it is neither my responsibility nor my place. Still, I can imagine small opportunities arising in confidence, which I trust myself to sense and respond to –mindfully.

How does society forgive well already?

Rehab. On a collective level for certain things, we have great capacity for forgiveness and re-enfranchisement. It’s beyond the scope of this post to address why we do this more easily for, say, alcoholism than prostitution, or adultery by men more than by women. But I’m glad to see examples of successful societal forgiveness more than I expected. Yay.

Reconciliation. Speaking of adultery..or infidelity… According to the Institute for Family Studies, 53% of people who had cheated in their marriage were married in 2010-2016, though some of these may be remarriages. That’s compared to 70% of people who have never cheated. Of course we cannot generalize about what’s happening in each affected couple and family. But I have observed multiple cases of true reconciliation after infidelity, and that encourages me.

How could we forgive better collectiely?

Reform Crime and Punishment. People who break the law are not necessarily bad people. People who harm others must be held to account, no question. Punishment should fit the crime–it’s not clear to me how much this is true in our society. Certainly incarcerated people should be treated as fully human and given opportunities to re-enter society with a better chance of staying out of jail than when they entered. Even the serial killer, who has forfeited the right to rejoin society, does not deserve to have their humanity taken away by fellow humans. Compassionate and Humane Accountability. What would society look like if we lived these words even a little better?

Mitigate Righteous Moral Judgment. “It’s just wrong.” There are far fewer absolutes in life than most of us think. Past experiences/traumas and volatile circumstances wildly alter our goals and tolerances, too often in ways we cannot nearly comprehend in real time, making us think, feel, speak and act in ways we may never do otherwise. Judge me at my worst, and your judgment is bound to be incomplete. Throw me away, dehumanize me from your most self-righteous ideology–why? What do you gain? Truthfully, we all lose when we do this to one another. We can do better.

Deep breaths, friends. Love first.