Quotes about Responsibility

When you try to exercise authority within a department that is outside your core competencies, you will hinder everything and everyone under your watch. If you fail to distinguish between authority and competence, you will exert your influence in ways that damage projects and people. To put it bluntly, there are things you are responsible for that you should keep your nose out of.

As leaders, we are never responsible for filling anyone else's cup. Our responsibility is to empty ours.

Delegation—either to time or to other people.… Transferring responsibility to other skilled and trained people enables you to give your energies to other high-leverage activities. Delegation means growth, both for individuals and for organizations.

Simply recognizing the need for change does not define leadership. The leader is the one who has the courage to act on what he sees…A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately. It is not his insight that sets the leader apart from the crowd. It is his courage to act on what he sees, to speak up when everyone else is silent.

Leadership is not always about getting things done "right." Leadership is about getting things done through other people…When a leader can't find someone to hand things off to, it is time for him to look in the mirror. We must never forget that the people who follow us are exactly where we have led them.

While nobody plans to mess up his life, the problem is that few of us plan not to.

It's deceiving but true that we rarely see any immediate consequences for neglecting a single installment of time in any arena of life. But if neglect becomes your pattern, you will eventually bump up against our third principle: 3. Neglect has a cumulative effect.

Just because there isn't a "Thou shalt not" attached to a situation does not necessarily mean it is a "Thou shalt.

What are the two or three things that you and only you are responsible for? What, specifically, have you been hired to do? What is "success" for the person in your position? Now let's slice it even thinner. Of the two or three things that define success for you, which of those are in line with your giftedness? Of the tasks you have been assigned to do, which of them are you specifically gifted to do?

The health of your marriage tomorrow will be determined by the decisions you make today.

When the point person in an organization strives for balance, he potentially robs other leaders of an opportunity to perform at the top of their game.

Whenever a leader tries to build job security by making himself indispensable to the organization, he in fact does the organization a disservice. Job security is too often based on someone's insecurity.