GOOD PEOPLE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY THE REST JUST TALK ABOUT IT.

It is easy to tell your kids to be kind, to respect others. To say please and thank you. It is harder to show them what it looks like when you are late for work, stuck in traffic, someone just sent you a passive-aggressive email, and the dog threw up on the hallway rug.

But that is when the real learning happens.  

A few years ago, I watched a friend speak to a retail staff member like they were a malfunctioning robot. His tone was sharp, dismissive, entitled. Their child who was maybe eight or nine stood quietly beside them, absorbing every second. That child will grow up knowing how to treat people when they are not useful to you…because that was what was modelled.

We do not shape character through speeches; we shape it through example. I have worked with founders, executives, and employees who carry an incredible sense of personal responsibility. Not because they were handed easy lives, but because someone, somewhere showed them that owning your actions is a strength, not a sentence.

Responsibility shows up in a hundred invisible ways.

It is when you accept your mistake.

It is when you do not forward the blame.

It is when you admit that maybe, just maybe, your tone in that meeting was less direct and more deranged.

We admire these traits in others, we talk about accountability culture and ownership mindset. But do we always practise it when it counts? Ego, especially in business, is a stubborn little creature. But what I have learned through clients, team members, and my own deeply humbling moments is that people trust leaders who take responsibility. Similarly, children trust parents who take responsibility and the strongest professionals I know build entire careers on it. It is the employee who does not blame the manager but asks how they could have been clearer. It is the founder who owns a bad hire, a bad strategy, a bad quarter and then fixes it. It is the parent who apologises for snapping at the child. 

If we want to raise good humans, we have to be one. If we want to lead a high-performing team, we must lead ourselves first. If we want our children, our peers, or our colleagues to take ownership, we must show them consistently and with maturity how it is done, knowing fully well where our influence starts and where it ends. Somewhere along the way, we confused blame with accountability but blame is reactive while responsibility is proactive. The truth is that when people see you own your stuff, they trust you more, they listen more, and they reflect more because you are creating an environment where mistakes are safe to acknowledge and growth is actually possible.

That is culture.

Whether you are building a business, a team, a family, or just trying to be less of a mess in the messaging app, responsibility is your most underrated leadership tool. So yes, teach your children manners. Tell your team to own their work. But more importantly…

1. When you mess up, own it.

2. When you are wrong, apologise.

3. When things are hard, keep showing up.

That is how the people around you learn what strength actually looks like. Good people are not perfect, they are just honest, accountable, and committed to getting better in full view of the ones who are watching.

Now ask yourself who are you modelling for today? And what do they see?