Accountability Begins with Enlightenment

Bill Grace – The Center for Ethical Leadership

 In the public sector, we encounter a lot of talk about accountability. But what exactly do we mean by this? What are we accountable for, and to whom?

 Accountability suggests that leaders act in relationship. How leaders define the breadth, depth and scope of that relationship is what makes for enlightened or unenlightened accountability.

 Elected officials feel a special sense of accountability to the constituents whose support put them in office. While accountability to constituents is natural and wise, enlightened accountability may call for a broader view. Accountability in its best and noblest sense asks leaders to account to constituents, but also to their conscience and to the common good.

 Wise leaders attend to the demands of conscience. For even as they represent the voice of the people, they also give ear to the inner call of their own integrity. Can our leaders truly represent the interests of others if they are unwilling to take a stand on their own highest ground? Enlightened accountability begins with honoring our core values and the demands of conscience.

 Enlightened leaders know they are also accountable to the common good, which requires leadership in two ways. First, the common good holds leaders accountable to establish liberty and justice for all. Simple enough. But the second part of leadership for the common good requires that leaders offer additional accountability to the least fortunate and the most vulnerable.

 In the first case, leaders are invited to imagine liberty and justice as a campfire. Some members of our community are gathered around the fire enjoying in its warmth and light. Others, uninvited by tradition, bias and narrow-mindedness, wait and suffer in the cold darkness.

 Everyone in elected office and all citizens must consider who is left outside the circle and invite them into its warmth and light. Enlightened leaders will hold themselves accountable to the faces and voices that are easily overlooked and unheard.

 Today, accountability seems more crucial than ever, as failures of integrity in corporate, government and religious institutions have made for rough public waters and a climate of caution and mistrust. What can leaders and those they lead do to re-establish trust in our public and private institutions?

 I believe the first step is for “the people” to hold leaders accountable to the right things. First, we should not hold leaders accountable to control the future. Anticipate it, plan for it, and seek to influence it, yes. Stuff happens. Fickle investors turn boom into bust, and fickle electorates want change as long as it doesn’t cost too much. And in a world where the only absolute is unpredictability, let’s not ask leaders to be accountable for the impossible.

 So, to what can we hold leaders accountable? I think there are three vital behaviors to which we must hold all leaders accountable:

 ·        Telling the truth

·        Asking good questions that engage the people

·        Pointing toward hope

 Unenlightened leaders would keep the truth from the people. This behavior is the root of all that is worst in leadership. When we deceive the people or mistrust their ability to handle the truth, we weaken democracy itself.

 Today’s problems are so complex that leaders may not be able to create solutions easily. Today we need to establish a climate of mutual accountability. Leaders can do that by attending to the second vital behavior: asking good questions that engage the people.

 Harry Boyle says Americans have become better customers then citizens. As enlightened citizens, we are challenged to see ourselves as accountable members of a complex household. As members-all, we certainly have rights. But we also have responsibilities.

 In this era of self-interest, it is easy to believe our duty is done by telling leaders what we want from them. However, government by the people makes all of us accountable—especially to those left outside the campfire of liberty and justice, or the circle of mercy and compassion. We are all stewards of the common good. No one is exempt from tending the campfire or widening the circle.

 The final behavior to which we must hold leaders accountable is pointing toward hope. Accountable leaders move away from quarrelsome and ego-bound nay-saying. Plenty of people tell us what won’t work.  We need more leaders to tell us what will, thereby calling us to possibility and hope, and, in turn, holding us accountable for compassionate action. They will ask us to lay aside cynicism for creative engagement, apathy for compassion, and privilege for duty.

 So let our accountability be mutual, let it be deeply internal and let it be broadly informed by the common good.

 Finally, I would offer this humble bit of advice for anyone in public office: Today you’ll most likely face a difficult decision. If you choose “solution X,” you’ll face staunch criticism. On the other hand, if you choose “solution Y,” you’ll be just as harshly criticized, but by a different group of people. If, on the other hand, you employ all-inclusive democratic processes, infused with the latest in chaos and complexity theory, to arrive at the incontrovertible “solution Z,” you will STILL be criticized—this time by an entirely new third group who didn’t even weigh in on solutions X or Y! So my advice is this: Do the right thing, and get criticized for that. That’s the one you can go home and get some sleep on.